Soldiers Of SHIELD Book One: Holiday To Latveria
by D117
Summary: SHIELD Special Forces team 'Casual' are sent to help put an end to a growing civil war in Latveria in this first story that retells the Modern Warfare campaign in the Marvel Universe.
1. Chapter One: Attention On Deck

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA

CHAPTER ONE: ATTENTION ON DECK

Red sat in a Little Bird helicopter staring out the open side of the speeding aircraft, soaring through the cold night across a violent sea somewhere near the Bering Strait. He watched a freighter fighting the waves as it rocked and threatened to capsize in the storm.

He was a stern faced man with a shaved head and tattoos across his body and arms. He had dark and focused eyes that seemed somehow suited to a life of soldiering. He had been in Russian Spetsnaz for ten years, at one point he had broken rank under the guise of the Red Guardian to carry out an operation against orders. As a result, now that he was a member of SHIELD's Special Forces, Krassno Granitsky had been had been nicknamed 'Red'.

Sitting across from him in the helicopter was the leader of their small unit, a tall and athletically built American who wore shooting glasses and had stubble on his square chin, short dark hair and a thick cigar blossoming smoke from his mouth. As the helicopter closed on the ship he inhaled one last breath and tossed it out into the writhing black water below.

"Gentlemen," he addressed the team who listened in as he shouted over the lashing rain and thundering clouds that filled the air about them, "The intel on this op comes from a spy we have working inside the Latverian Ultranationalist forces. It's believed they're purchasing a WMD on the Russian black market which is being transported by this stolen Estonian freighter. Our objective is to secure the package for safe extraction. There is expected to be a small crew and security detail on board, all of whom are to be considered hostile. Shoot first, let brass deal with the rest later."

Red and the others nodded, they had read the briefing reports and understood what the situation was. Doctor Doom's country Latveria was on the brink of tearing itself apart in a civil war between loyalist forces under the infamous dictator's control and ultranationalist rebels looking to kick start a war with the rest of the world as payback for their leader's countless failures and humiliations. The crisis was just another day at the office for SHIELD. Despite for once looking to work on the same side, the national government did not want the international peace keeping task force to get involved, and so this mission to prevent the rebels getting their hands on a possible nuclear warhead was about as much as the peace keeping organisation could do without beginning illegal operations.

The American commanding Red's team, which operated under the call sign 'Casual', was a man called Jake Fury. After having completed a long term undercover operation for his infamous older brother Nick, Jake had been recruited into SHIELD following it's recreation after the event known as the Serpent War. Six months ago Fury had handpicked Red and the others for his elite new team from the finest Special Forces units on the planet.

"SHIELD Control this is Foe Hammer," Red heard the pilot, another American, speak over his headset, "We have visual on the target. ETA thirty seconds, going dark."

The Russian soldier checked over his suppressed sub-machine gun, the perfect weapon for the close confines of the ship coming up below them, and ensured it was ready to fire. He had never particularly liked flying, as a soldier he felt somewhat helpless sat up in the air, and he was eager to get his boots down onto the deck of the boat.

"Ten seconds," The pilot declared, turning to his co-pilot, "Radio check. Go to secure channel."

"Let's do this," Fury murmured, cocking his own SMG.

"Green light," said the pilot as the helicopter hovered metres above the vast ship that now swam against the elements beneath Red. "Go, go, go!"

Red let Fury lead as he kicked a rope out that hung down to the slippery deck below and slid down the rain slicked chord, following the team leader down onto the boat from the chopper which hung almost invisibly above in the dark of the night.

"Weapons free," Fury instructed as he and Red aimed their guns at the window of the bridge whilst the rest of the four man team finished rappelling from the helicopter. The pair studied through the sights of their firearms a room filled with old dials and controls manned by half awake sailors and their napping colleagues.

The silenced sub-machine guns spat bullets through the thin panes of glass which shattered almost noiselessly in the storm and tore the handful of crew apart in a lethal and perfectly accurate volley of fire from the skilled marksmen.

"Sherlock, Howler, you good?" Fury asked the rest of the team who had formed up behind Red and their leader after the brief shooting stopped. The helicopter drifted away from the ship to prevent drawing attention to the boarding party it had deployed.

"We're good," Confirmed Howler. He was a muscular African American who wore a heavy headset over his ears. The aviator sunglasses that normally hid his eyes at all times hung by a string about his neck, apparently the clouded night was dark enough already, Red guessed. His name was actually Phil Leonard, proudly the nephew of deceased Howling Commando Gabriel Jones, and he had served in Delta Force where having such a famed relation lead to him receiving the nickname 'Howler'. Red found him to be a very controlled and professional soldier, something he appreciated in his squad mate.

"Lovin' the weather too, boss," added the London born Sherlock. Previously to his selection into Casual, Simon Holmes had been an operative of the SAS running field operations for MI13. Being a know it all with a surname like his had quickly lead him to be known as 'Sherlock', but despite Red's disapproval of how much the soldier liked to talk, the Englishman had proven himself to be a very talented combatant. He wore an old baseball cap on his head, the hood of a grey jumper under the black combat gear they all wore hung down his back and he had an unshaven face.

"Squad on me," Fury instructed and Red fell in line behind him as he kicked open the door to the bridge. The team filed in quickly, weapons at the ready, and moved through into a corridor. A drunken crew member staggered to and fro in their path with a half empty liquor bottle clutched in one hand.

Red and Fury put a pair of bullets in his chest and the drunkard dropped to the floor without a sound, the bottle rolling across the floor from his limp hand with the motions of the boat.

"Last call, bottoms up," Sherlock quipped as Casual moved into a small side room off the corridor where bunk beds held the rest of the crew.

The four remaining sailors were all fast asleep and lying with limbs hanging lazily down towards the floor where the odd boot or coat had been discarded. The SHIELD soldiers each picked a target and fired a silenced burst of rounds into the snoring men who twitched in response and then went still again as though nothing had ever happened.

"Good night," Red heard Fury murmur in condolence. He followed the leader back into the corridor and out the other side of the bridge. They walked again into the relentless rain and down a narrow flight of stairs that put them on the long main deck.

"Bridge is clear," Fury said, "Advance into the forward deck and fan out. Five meter spread."

Red edged forwards and apart from the rest of Casual, stepping between big metal shipping containers with various signs in all sorts of languages written on them, staying hidden in the shadows they cast from the few lights scattered about the deck. The line of SHIELD soldiers moved closer to the relatively well lit rear of the ship which rose up a few floors giving it problematically a commanding view of any activity down below on the main deck.

"Eyes on two walking the platform," Howler reported, his deep voice coming through Red's earpiece. Looking up, the Russian noticed the slim walkway that rose over the deck halfway to the opposite side, cutting the boat's length in half. On it a pair of silhouetted figures shone flash lights half heartedly about themselves, after all, what danger was there out here in the middle of nowhere?

"Switch 'em off," Fury instructed, and as one of the team shot down the first of the two patrolling targets Red took brief but precise aim and gunned down the second with a quick succession of shots. The torches dropped beside the bodies and shone towards the empty horizons.

"Clear," stated Sherlock, and the squad's thin line that had hesitated to deal with the guards continued at a fast pace again down the length of the freighter, passing under the walkway without incident.

As they closed on the far end of the ship either their movement or the lack of radio response from the dead crew and guards had alerted the rest of the security detail to the presence of a boarding party. Red suddenly heard incoming fire in the midst of the rain and thunder, it sounded distinctly inaccurate but looking up to the second floor of the ship's rear tower he could see gathering numbers of armed hostiles shooting down into the lamp lit area that Casual had edged into.

"We've got company, boys and girls," Sherlock said disapprovingly of the welcoming party that had come to greet the boarders.

Red ducked for cover behind a pile of steel girders and, with the crates and boxes restricting alternate paths, his team mates joined him behind the low wall of construction materials whilst bullets began to add to the heavy sheets of rain that were rushing down on top of them.

"Foe Hammer," Fury barked over the growing sounds of battle into his mic to the helicopter that was somewhere out in the night lingering about the boat, "We've got tangos on the second floor!"

"Copy," Came the reply from the pilot over the comm. link, "engaging."

Sitting pinned, Red waited as rounds from poorly aimed AK-47's slammed into the girders at his back or glanced off the floor around him and skittered off to pierce the shipping containers. Moments later the helicopter rose into view over head. Its mounted minigun sprayed fire across the length of the balcony from which the growing hostile force had gathered, ripping into banisters and walls and doors. Where the brutally fast firing weapon hit a person they were sent spinning to the ground with bursts of blood quickly being diluted by the rain. Shell casings flooded down onto the deck from the fast firing weapon.

"Move up," Fury ordered the moment the minigun ceased firing.

Red peaked up from his cover and saw that there was no one left alive up above, and he jumped over his cover as the team advanced up to the foot of the three storey tall tower. The helicopter drifted off again for the time being. They headed round to one side of it where the schematics they had studied in the briefing earlier showed there was a door leading down to the cargo holds. The team stacked up at the door and Red pulled the wheel shaped handle when Fury nodded to him to do so, revealing a corridor with stairs leading down from it into the belly of the ship.

"On my mark," Fury said as he lead the way inside, "go."

Casual filed into the empty corridor behind him and took aim down the stairs which turned back on themselves one flight down and then disappeared into another corridor underneath. Red checked back the way they had come but no one was following them. They hadn't left anyone alive to do so anyway.

"Clear. Ready, Sir." Howler said as Casual stood poised to move downstairs.

"Move up," Fury commanded as the unit paced down the steps, "Watch your corners."

"X-Rays right," Sherlock warned as they moved round the turn in the stairs and saw that at the end of a poorly lit, tight corridor that was lined with exposed pipes and wiring a group of armed men were rushing to meet the intruders head on.

Red took a knee as he and his colleagues opened fire with deadly precision, gunning down the handful of opposing soldiers before a single shot was returned in their direction. He ejected the near empty clip from his SMG, pulled a fresh one from his flak jacket. He tapped it on the side of his weapon before slotting it into place to ensure it wouldn't jam.

As the hallway was announced clear he followed the others down to where their outmatched enemies now lay strewn haphazardly across the corrugated metal floor and up to a door through which their most recent victims must have come. Red knew again from the schematics that this would open up onto a vast cargo hold that would stretch half the length of the ship. It would be two storeys tall due to the ground level resting in the very bottom of the boat's hull.

"Stand by, on my go," Fury said as he pulled a piece of equipment from his belt and the team waited at the closed door.

"Standing by," nodded Howler.

Fury opened the door carefully ajar and tossed the flash bang he had retrieved from his belt round the corner. Red saw the intense burst of light and heard the explosive noise even as Fury pulled the door shut to shield them from its effects.

"Flash bang out. Go, go, go!" shouted their commander as he opened the door fully and lead the way into the first cargo hold.

Red followed his unit through the door to find himself on a catwalk that ran along one side of the large cargo bay that he now stood in, it's floor lined with more shipping containers and various equipment for moving them. Up ahead a pair of stunned soldiers were quickly shot down by Fury, whilst on the opposite side another catwalk was now lining with a half dozen hostile soldiers sent to put a stop to Casual's advance.

The SHIELD team opened fire as incoming bullets pinged off the metal handrail beside them and into the wall behind. Red took aim at a pair of targets furthest down the catwalk who, being closest, posed the greatest threat of accuracy. He took them both down in a single spray of fire that was controlled well by keeping his weapon tight into his shoulder and compensating perfectly for the recoil of his SMG.

"Catwalk clear, got you covered, boss," Sherlock said as Fury made to head down the steep steps from the catwalk and onto the floor of the cargo hold. Red followed him down as Sherlock waited up top to keep an eye on them from the higher ground.

"Sherlock stay on over watch, the rest of you on me," said Fury as Red lead Howler down the steps. The team snaked their way through the big metal boxes and to a door at the far corner of the room that would lead them into the second cargo hold.

"No tangos in sight, Sir," Sherlock reported from the catwalk.

"Tighten up," Fury ordered him.

"On it."

"Stack at the door," Red was ordered, and the group prepared to enter the next room as Howler this time prepped a flash bang. Fury nudged open the heavy door for him to drop it through. A spark of light escaped through the half shut door along with a muffled sound of the detonation. "Go."

Casual rushed in and Red took point, putting short bursts of fire into a set of enemy soldiers staggering inside as they recovered from the stun grenade. He aimed for the centre of mass and shot them all in the chests to puncture lungs and hearts and kill them instantly, not a single bullet wasted.

One of his teammates called a warning of incoming fire from the catwalk that ran along the wall across the other side of this room and Red ducked down behind a container. He edged along whilst staying low and keeping out of sight so that his enemy did not know where he was before popping back up to deliver quick and accurate return fire whilst bullets shot down nearby him. The rest of the team had already killed most of them making it easy for the Spetsnaz veteran to put down the final few soldiers up above.

The team moved cautiously further into the hold but after fanning out and finding no further threats they reported it to be clear. Red reloaded again as he regrouped on his leader and waited for further instructions, but it was Howler who spoke up.

"Fury, I'm getting a strong reading, Sir. You might want to take a look at this."

Red helped him pull open the shipping container he was indicating that his geiger counter had found issue with. The team looked inside to find a box that they all recognised as the type of container used to transport arms; thick, secure, insulated and painted camouflage. Some of the markings on the side warned that it contained a radioactive device, and it didn't require the Russian Red to translate them for it to be clear that Casual had just found a nuclear warhead being transported to the Latverian Ultranationalists. The symbol that was most disturbing on the container, however, was a painted skull with tentacles protruding from it on the front of the box.

"HYDRA..." Fury said grimly, moving inside to take a closer look at a map board that was lying against the container. HYDRA were a terrorist empire without loyalty to any nation and had been aiming for world domination since the second World War. As he inspected it Red could see over his shoulder certain locations across the picture of Europe had been marked out, "Looks like all known AIM bases in the vicinity of Latveria," Fury explained, a similar organisation that had emerged from HYDRA's science division and now rivalled it in both power and single mindedness.

The team leader spoke into his mic again to report the situation back to SHIELD control who were monitoring their progress. "Control this is Casual, we've secured the package. It looks to be of HYDRA origin and there's what looks like a target list along with it pointing towards AIM positions. We're ready to transport the cargo."

"Negative, Casual lead," came the reply over the team's earpieces, "No time for that, we've just picked up two bogies heading your way fast, you need to get the hell out of there!"

"Fast movers? Probably MiGs, Sir," Howler assessed.

"Wait, HYDRA are using Latverian rebels to hit AIM?" Sherlock asked, confused by the evidence they had just uncovered, "What the hell is all this about?"

"No time for that now," Fury said as he dumped the map and lead his team away from the container, "Everyone topside, double time!"

As he finished his sentence a sudden heavy clang of metal made Red and his team swing round with weapons at the ready. A nearby shipping container suddenly burst open, something inside having kicked the steel door out with ease. Red waited with a finger on the trigger of his weapon to see what on Earth was about to emerge from the crate.

A skeletal, mechanic figure stepped out with jerky movements, hydraulic joints hissing with each step and its dull lit eyes turning in its steel head menacingly towards Casual. It paused for a moment as it took in its surroundings and looked as though it was trying to discern whether or not the soldiers were a threat. Red edged to his side to get a clearer shot at the robot should Fury order it, recognising instantly what this staring robot was and anticipating that the tense situation would soon explode violently.

It was an early generation Doombot, and it didn't look as though it was going to quietly power down.

Suddenly it rushed at the team and whatever instruction to open fire Fury gave was quickly lost as all four of the men let rip with their automatic weapons. Red saw a dozen or more rounds glance of the thick armour plating of the lean figure which it ignored as though they had no effect. Instead it lashed out with powerful arms at the closest soldier. Red burnt through the entire clip of his weapon as the attacker swiped at Howler, sending the big man flying into a shipping container behind him with a growl of pain as he collided with the solid object.

"Back it up," Red heard Fury instruct the team and Red followed orders as he slowly stepped away from the attacking machine, letting his empty SMG hang by its strap at his side to pull out his side arm rather than stopping to reload, and he began firing with the nine millimetre pistol. A round shot out one of the glowing eyes deep in the sockets of the metallic, humanoid face.

The robot flinched from the damage before turning on Red and with lightning speed pounced on the Russian, knocking him to the ground with frightening ease and standing over him as Red scrambled to recover and fire his weapon again. A vice like robot hand grabbed his own and pinned it to the ground so that his pistol pointed harmlessly away, and Red watched as it raised its second arm to deliver a punch that would no doubt crack open his skull.

Fury and Sherlock were on the robot in the blink of an eye, one grabbed its poised fist to stop the blow and the other pulled it back and slowly off Red by the neck. The Doombot was too strong for them, however, and rose to swat them off its lithe frame without difficulty, ignoring incoming fire from Howler as the Delta soldier recovered himself, relatively unharmed, and moved back into the fight. The robot turned its one good eye back on Red who had reloaded his pistol and aimed it to fire no doubt ineffectively again at his attacker.

The ship suddenly shuddered and shook violently, being struck not by the storm but by missiles from the incoming planes the team had been warned of a moment ago. Flames licked inside the cargo hold and water began to pour in around them. The members of Casual still on their feet were hurled to the ground by the force of the blast whilst the Doombot staggered to retain its balance.

A shipping container mounted on top of a second slid forward from the force of the impacts beside Red. Just over half of it now hung off the box below and between the extended weight of the heavy steel crate and the severe rocking of the damaged vessel it tipped and began falling. It was coming down on the soldier and the robot like the carriage of a speeding train.

Red rolled aside desperately and saw the Doombot look up at what had caused him concern. The machine noticed the falling crate too late and as it crouched slightly no doubt leap to safety it was crushed and pinned underneath the vast falling container. Sparks shot out from the broken machine underneath the container it as the huge box slammed with a heavy, bone shaking crash to the floor of the cargo hold.

As Red breathed a sigh of relief Fury was quickly beside him and pulling him to his feet, "On your feet, comrade, we are leaving!"

Red didn't complain but simply followed Fury behind Sherlock and Howler as they all sprinted back the way they had come, water gushing down in fountains around them, flames springing from seemingly nowhere as the floor beneath them seemed to try and climb the walls of the cargo hold, the freighter rocking dangerously close to capsizing.

"I thought those things worked for Doom," Sherlock shouted over the noise of the ship that was in the midst of now tearing itself apart, concerned that the machine ought to have been on their side, "If these buggers can reprogram tech like that they must have someone on side who really knows their stuff."

"Yeah, no shit," Howler called back, not in any mood to engage in conversation as he pushed a falling Sherlock up the steps and onto the catwalk now that they had lead the way back to the first cargo room.

"Stay on your feet!" Fury demanded as water broke in from the side of the catwalk and threatened to throw them all over the banister, "Keep moving!"

"What the hell just happened?" The helicopter pilot asked over the comm. link, "Casual, come in damn it!"

"Foe Hammer, we're on our way out," Fury reported, Red running just behind him along the catwalk that was collapsing underneath with every step. The doorway ahead looked like it was almost horizontal as the boat rolled again. "Enemy aircraft hit the freighter, get ready for an immediate extraction!"

"We can't be here if those fighters come back," warned the helicopter pilot, "Talk to me, Casual, where are you?"

"We're almost there," Fury insisted, "Just hold on!"

"Which way to the bloody chopper?" Sherlock asked as they moved into the corridors and up steps towards the main deck, Red holding a nearby handrail to stop himself from being thrown back down the hall as the boat tipped upwards in the waves.

"Right!" Fury yelled, "Go right!"

Red ran, slipping on the water that was now pooling on the floor around him. Casual operated in light gear, stripped down to keep them fast on the ground but in this desperate rush he hated every pound of equipment he was carrying.

"We're running out of time, move your asses!" Fury barked at the team as they scrambled out of the door and onto the main deck, into the rain and wind and giant waves that broke over the sides of the tumbling ship.

It felt like underneath his sprinting legs Red was falling into the ocean already, thunder clapped over his head and the helicopter, their salvation from this desperate situation, was nowhere in sight. Just as Red began to worry they had taken a wrong turn somewhere, at the edge of the boat the aircraft suddenly swung into view and hovered a couple of metres from the rapidly sinking ship.

"Jump for it!" Howler shouted at Sherlock as the pair leapt up onto the handrail and threw themselves into the open sides of the Little Bird, pulling each other up and into the seats out the way for the rest of the team to join them.

Red was right behind Fury who jumped and landed inside the chopper with relative ease, but as Red kicked one foot up onto the banister the boat suddenly dipped below him and he slipped as he pushed off, the helicopter suddenly far higher above him and further away than it was moments before.

He fell through the air with the rain pouring down on him and the thrashing sounds of the sea below. Red stretched out his gloved hands as far as he could and managed to catch one of the landing skids on the underside of the aircraft with one hand. The metal bar was wet and quickly Red felt his grip begin to slide. As he lunged up with his second hand his first slipped and for a heartbeat he was in free fall over the ocean, helicopter blades hissing above him and the sinking ship lunging behind with nothing but the roaring black waters to fall in.

A hand grabbed his wrist. Looking up Red saw Fury reaching down and holding on tight to his arm with all his strength, the hands of Howler and Sherlock across Fury's chest keeping him from toppling out.

"Gotcha!" Fury grunted as he pulled Red up who scrambled into his seat opposite the commander with a gasping breath. Utter relief washed over him after his brush with a cold and lonely death somewhere under the waves.

"We're all aboard," Howler called out to the pilots.

"Go!" Sherlock added, "And get a bloody move on, lads, I'm freezing!"

"Roger that," The pilot laughed, "We're out of here. Control this is Foe Hammer, package secured, returning to base. Out."

Red looked back down into the sea where the ship was now on its side and vanishing into the water fast, he heard the pilot tell Fury the fliers that had shot down the freighter were Latverian air force. The conclusion being that the country was cleaning up its own mess for a change in complete ignorance of SHIELD's operation on board. Red watched a flash of lightning show that the ship had now completely disappeared under the waves moments after they had escaped sharing its fate.

He knew that after everything they had seen in the ship; a nuclear warhead, HYDRA support, AIM targets and a reprogrammed Doombot device, SHIELD's involvement in the Latverian crisis was far from over.

Casual were just getting started in this war.


	2. Chapter Two: This Belongs To Us

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA

CHAPTER TWO: THIS BELONGS TO US

Red was stood checking over his assault rifle in a large aircraft hanger inside a SHIELD facility in eastern Europe. Various tech agents fiddled with a tall, archway shaped device lined with wires trailing to various computer equipment surrounding it. In charge of them was a young man Red knew to be Rigby Fallon, who had been with SHIELD for years already and often had provided the team technical support on their missions. Sherlock and Howler stood with him as they saw Fury arrive, smoking a cigar, having been quickly briefed on their next mission. He was walking with someone who Red recognised as an intelligence officer called Fisher.

"What's with those two love birds?" Sherlock asked Howler, pulling on his cap and nodding to the pair who were chatting as they approached the group.

Red had wondered himself, as two appeared to be close friends. Agent Fisher often got himself assigned to SHIELD Control to keep track of their missions whilst Fury would repeatedly volunteer Casual to take the intelligencer's field operations.

"Fury was undercover in HYDRA for a damn long time," Howler explained, his sunglasses perched on his nose for the time being, "His brother was his only contact on the outside, when he went underground he handed the reigns over to SHIELD agents he could trust. From what I heard, Fisher was the only man Fury could risk speaking to who wasn't some asshole terrorist for years. Been Bonnie and Clyde ever since he finished the op."

"An op that took down all of HDYRA command from what I was told," Sherlock added, "I still want to know what the HYDRA bastards have to do with Ultranationalists in Latveria though. What do you think, Red?"

Red opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Fury.

"Listen up, Casual," he called out, stood in front of his waiting team, "The situation in Latveria just went hot, we're looking at a full scale civil war and Fisher wants us in the middle of it."

"And who's side are we going to be on in this?" Sherlock asked.

"Doom's government is far from perfect but it's stable," Fury reminded him, "The Ultranationalists aren't guaranteeing civilian safety, thousands have been killed already."

"So we're helping the good Doctor," Howler shrugged, "suppose there's a first for everything."

Fisher was a handsome and quick witted American with a background in coordinating CIA and NSA joint operations, Red had been told. He addressed them quickly, time obviously being a factor.

"The asset that gave us intel on the cargo ship mission last night has been compromised," He explained, "They're in hell right now and we need you to walk them out, we look after our own. Now we've not been given permission to enter the conflict by Doctor Doom's government but a military colonel on the ground has agreed to cooperate covertly. He's been working on securing ranged missile silos to ensure the rebels don't spread this outside of their own country. We still need to keep SHIELD presence in the area to a minimum though, so we're going to insert you via a teleportation shift. We're lifting budget restrictions on this tech just the once for you boys, you don't want to know how much this one pop is going to cost."

"What's the score?" Howler asked.

"There's a village in the north of the country filled with rebels killing civilians to make space for their camp," Fury continued, "Colonel Kholt wants us to help his forces stop the attack, in exchange he'll provide us with the location of our spy who's last transmission suggests they will be located somewhere in the same area. Distance from teleport insertion point to rendezvous with Kholt and his men will be half a click. Extraction will be a loyalist chopper on the opposite side of the village which will take us to a safe house over the border in Romania."

"Sounds like fun," Sherlock said. "Assuming we can trust the locals you want us to play nice with."

"Well they won't shoot us on sight, if that's what you're asking." Fury answered drily.

"Good enough for me, Sir." Sherlock shrugged.

"Alright, prep the shift, kid," Fury told the brilliant young technician Fallon who nodded as his group made their final preparations.

"Watch your back out there," Red heard Fisher add to Fury, "I can't collect those poker winnings if you get your head blown off."

"Get yourself in Control for this one," Fury replied, "Things are going to hit the fan fast out there. And I told you, straight beats a flush you cheating bastard, you owe me."

"The teleport is active, Sir," Fallon told Fury, "good luck."

"Copy that," Fury nodded as he slipped on his protective glasses, "Move out."

Red walked with the rest of the team into the lightning like lines of blue electricity that had begun bouncing across the inside of the archway. He suddenly felt static shocks across his body and after few spasms of shock and discomfort the sudden consuming feeling of electrical currents writhing through his muscles finished.

His ears popped as he suddenly found himself knee deep in a swamp under a darkening evening sky. It was cold, plant life grew up around him from the murky water and beside him stood the equally disorientated members of Casual, readying weapons and scanning their sectors. Red raised his rifle too as the danger of their new surroundings suddenly became apparent to him.

They were in Latveria.

"Loyalists are this way," Fury said, leading the group out of the marshland towards the rendezvous point, and Red was glad to get his dark BDU out of the water before he was completely soaked through and caked in thick mud.

The swamp rose into long grass and there were clusters of trees ahead before a sharp incline towards the darkening horizon. Between Casual and the rise, however, was half the remains of an old wooden bridge that hung out over the swamp. It was something of a vantage point for a pair of ultranationalist guards with AK47's cradled in their arms, looking in the wrong direction to spot the new immigrants.

"Weapons free," Fury whispered over the comm. link.

Red squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle and the automatic fire of his weapon and one other member of the team beside him quickly cut down the guards who had not yet noticed the shadows sneaking through the darkness.

"Got him," Sherlock confirmed.

"There should be a few more guard houses up ahead," Fury said, leading them between a handful of trees and up the hill through clinging grass.

Red jogged up through the thick vegetation that clung to his boots towards the outlines of a few outhouses. They were little more than sheds, perhaps once locals had used them as hunting cabins or maybe to store food stocks. Either way the lights inside and dead bodies lying outside suggested they had become guard houses for the invading rebel forces.

"Red, plant some claymores by the door on the second building," Fury instructed.

Slinging his rifle over one shoulder, the Russian edged behind the back of the first wooden construct, avoiding the cut out windows so that he wasn't seen by the Latverian Ultranationalists inside. He pulled out a claymore and, crouching to stay out of site, cautiously stepped up to the doorway of the second building. He flicked a laser motion sensor on at the front that, when disturbed, would detonate the explosive device with devastating effect.

"Sherlock, get their attention," Red heard the team leader instruct over his earpiece as he pulled back and away from the claymore he had just planted.

"My pleasure..." replied the Brit in a menacing tone.

Looking behind him, Red saw Sherlock toss a flash bang into the first building and duck away from the light and noise that exploded inside the little wooden shack. Two men stumbled out of the room clutching their ears as they tried to aim guns through blinded eyes. Red watched as Howler put them both down in a quick burst of fire.

The sound had startled the men in the second building as well, and Red raised his rifle unnecessarily as they ran out clutching weapons and triggered the claymore waiting for them just outside. The explosion was fast and vicious, engulfing both of the guards instantly in a spray of fire and shrapnel, skinning the face of the closest man and blowing the legs out from underneath them both. Red watched his handiwork unfold and sprayed a couple of bullets into the dead bodies for good measure, confirming the kills.

"Enemies down," Howler said as the group moved up towards Red at the second building.

"Good work," Fury nodded, "Let's go find our Colonel."

Casual ran up the hill, the further they went the darker the night got and the more the wild marshland turned to civilisation. The sheds became houses and the grass became road as the soldiers moved into the village outskirts. The buildings were abandoned, Red noticed, desolate, perhaps they had been for some time or perhaps they had recently been evacuated when the rebel forces became their new neighbours.

Fury lead the team into a house between fences, and Red stepped through the shadows of the poorly furnished home with his rifle ready in case any more guards were lurking in the buildings, but it seemed as though the few they had encountered earlier were the only ones stalking this area. Red followed Fury out of the back of the house and into the overgrown bark garden.

"Lads," Sherlock whispered to the others as they stopped outside the back door, "You smell that?"

Red sniffed the air and a breeze carried the scent of sheepskin and leather, metal and sweat to his nostrils. The former Spetsnaz man remembered the last time he had been in this country, and how the soldiers had often worn leather jackets like those typically worn by airmen, with woollen cuffs and collars.

"Yeah," Howler nodded, "Latverians," he said, clearly his career prior to SHIELD had been just as colourful as Red's.

A man approached from the end of the garden, hidden before behind a large oak tree. He was dressed in Latverian uniform and had a bald head, a thick beard and a scar down one side of his aging face. As he moved forwards, his men who had concealed themselves in the long grass of the garden rose up about him, aiming guns at Casual who aimed their own straight back.

"Easy, boys," Fury murmured to his team, who reluctantly followed his example of lowering their weapons.

"You are Fury?" asked the scarred Latverian.

"I am," Red watched his team leader approach the man, ready to cover him should this supposed truce turn out to be a trap, "You're Kholt?"

"Colonel Kholt," Corrected the older man, "I am not happy of your American involvement in our affairs. I could have your men killed and no one would ever know."

Red thought that Fury looked more frustrated than scared by the threat. The SHIELD agent stepped closer to the Latverian officer and calmly adjusted the strap of his rifle.

"You agreed to this because you need all the help you can get right now," Fury reminded him, "So stop wasting our time and tell us the target. We've got an asset to recover."

Red thought he actually heard Kholt growl in response and he noticed that his soldiers began to shift nervously as though they expected a shoot out to immediately erupt. He wrapped his finger around the trigger of his weapon.

"The Ultranationalists have BM21's on the other side of this hill," Kholt chose to reply professionally, jabbing a thumb towards the tree line past the garden, "Their rockets have killed hundreds of civilians in the valley below."

Fury nodded and indicated to Red and the others to move out, "Copy that," he said to Kholt, and as Red moved for the tree line the colonel sent his own men in a different direction to begin the main attack in the valley. Kholt, however, and a small handful of his men lead the way for Casual.

Red exchanged brief glances with his squad mates and could tell that they didn't trust this Colonel any more than he did. As far as the Latverian was concerned, they were cannon fodder and the asset they had been sent to rescue was nothing more than collateral.

"This way," Kholt indicated through the trees and as the SHIELD and loyalists soldiers left the wooded hill top they found themselves on dirt track that ran along the edge of a steep cliff. There was a thirty foot drop into the valley below where the village was sat, half of the simple buildings had either been demolished or were on fire. Bodies without uniforms lay piled by the sides of the road. Soldiers flooded the alleys between houses and the BM21's rolled down the roads. "There's a good spot where you can cover my men," Kholt pointed to the ridge.

"Take position," Fury ordered his men and Red lay down on his stomach beside the rest of his team and aimed the red dot sight on the top of his rifle down into the valley, "Sherlock watch our six."

"Covering," Sherlock said.

Kholt spoke into a radio to his men who were waiting on the edge of the village, hidden from view. Red didn't speak much Latverian, his experience with the country was limited but it had all been in combat and so he recognised a few relevant phrases. One of the words Kholt uttered was "attack".

Quite suddenly loyalist soldiers appeared as if from out of nowhere and began to rush into the village, firing on the unaware rebels before they realised a counter movement had begun. Red saw beside him Howler ready the grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of his rifle to fire on one of the BM21's. They were basically trucks, Russian by origin, armour plated and with multiple missile launchers mounted behind the driver's cabins. They could tear down buildings in a single volley as displayed throughout the unlucky village.

"Open fire," Fury told his men, and Red opened fire with his weapon at the rebels who had begun to coordinate some kind of defence against the sudden attack.

Red gunned down a cluster of soldiers looting bodies by a road, then took aim at a handful more moving to intercept Kholt's men moving down towards a crossroad. He stopped firing to reload his weapon as Howler found his target and fired off a grenade from his launcher. Red slapped a new clip into his rifle and watched Howler's shot lob across and dip down through the air to land perfectly underneath one of the BM21's, exploding under its fuel tank and creating an enormous ball of flame that consumed many of the rebels around it using the vehicle for cover.

"Technical down," Howler said, before spotting a new threat, "Machine gunners in the windows."

"Red, take them out so Kholt's men can storm the building!" Fury instructed the Russian who aimed his newly reloaded weapon and fired a quick few shots into the window that Howler had pointed to. Machine guns were being readied by rebel soldiers inside the buildingowHoHhFJFI[FI

, and where the gunners were obscured by the walls he fired through the thin wood and brickwork to kill them before the loyalists could be shot down by them. As soon as the guns were no longer manned, the Latverian military kicked down the door to the building and took the heavy weaponry for their own.

"Enemy helicopters, Sir," Sherlock warned from behind them, seeing choppers flying in to shoot at the backs of the advancing loyalists.

"You didn't say there would be any helicopters, Kholt," Fury snapped at Kholt who stood behind them with his men watching the battle through binoculars.

Red turned to see Kholt reply without taking his eyes off the battleground, "I didn't say there would not be, either." He pointed away down the dirt road towards a rise at the end of which looked like some kind of small power station. The helicopters had moved to deploy their own soldiers in the open space in front of it on the high ground. "We move this way," he instructed, and Red looked for Fury's nod before following the Colonel and his men.

"Let's make this quick, Kholt," Fury urged, running beside the Latverian, "I want that spy."

"We need to stop the helicopter troops," Kholt insisted without listening to Fury.

"We should just beat it out of him, Sir," Sherlock suggested helpfully to Fury, keeping quiet.

Fury paused, "Not yet," he said, the thought having clearly crossed his mind.

They moved into an open stretch of field where hay bales were dotted around, a farm house stood to the left whilst to the right was the cliff edge down into the village. Up ahead was the power station, before that a pair of helicopters now flew away to leave behind a dozen or more soldiers heading down towards Casual and Kholt's men.

"We've got company," Howler pointed out as they all dived for cover behind the hay bales and scattered rocks.

"Grenades out!" Fury ordered.

Red pulled a frag grenade from a pouch on his BDU and yanked out the pin, lobbing it over arm into a cluster of soldiers and ducking back into cover before he could see it detonate and blow them apart. A few more explosions from the rest of the grenades sounded and Red popped back out of cover, rifle first, to finish off what remained of the helicopter troops.

Kholt listened to some radio chatter from his other officers and as he lead the group including Casual up towards the power station he told them that they were making progress. They filed into the power station and saw over a low wall at the other side that they again stood at the edge of the cliff, over the other side of which there were a few buildings that made up the edge of the village. They were occupied by what remained of the ultranationalist forces on this side of the village and were under attack by Kholt's forces.

Red saw Fury open his mouth to speak but Kholt immediately cut him off to keep stalling, "The final assault has already begun, you will continue your support as we capture these buildings."

Fury looked to his men and Red recognised the instant he stepped towards Kholt what he was planning to do. Red kicked one of Kholt's men to the floor with a heavy boot and aimed his rifle at another. Next to him he saw Howler and Sherlock raise their weapons on the other Latverians whilst Fury pulled out his side arm in the blink of an eye on Kholt.

Red saw the colonel stare down the weapon in disgust as Fury cut to the chase.

"Enough screwing around," He snapped at Kholt, "Where's our asset?"

Kholt spoke venomously in his own language, and Red guessed it was a serious of curses and insults but Fury was not interested. Instead he grabbed the man by the throat and pushed him back so that he was leaning over the edge of the wall, hanging half over the cliff with a gun at his head.

"Where?" Fury yelled.

"The house at the north of the village," Kholt answered grudgingly, "Vasilli? Guide them to it," he ordered the tall, blonde haired man that Red was holding at gun point who nodded, not taking his eyes off of the Russian.

"Well that wasn't so hard was it?" Fury said, pulling Kholt back from the edge and shoving him to the floor, "Don't bother getting up. Vasilli? Lead the way."

Red lowered his weapon and the loyalist soldier did as he was commanded without complaint, he looked like he understood the urgency in their mission. As soon as Howler had tied up a rope to a pylon in the power station and tossed it over the ledge, Vasilli was the first to jump and abseil down the other side.

Following him and the rest of Casual, Red jumped down the side of the cliff, the rope sliding easily through his gloved hands as he let gravity pull him down to the ground below the power station where all about loyalist soldiers were storming towards the well defended buildings. At the back of a set of three houses and up a small hill was the house that Kholt had finally admitted their asset was in. Vasilli lead the group forward and behind a low wall for cover as the incoming fire picked up and the team joined the main assault.

"Vasilli, we've got to reach that house before anything happens to our agent," Fury reminded the Latverian, "Let's go!" He urged.

The guide nodded and sprung over the wall, Red and the others followed him in a pack, firing on the silhouettes in the windows up ahead, aiming for where sparks of weapon fire were shooting back at them. Red saw a Latverian soldier to his side spin to the ground in a spray of blood as a pair of rounds caught him in the neck and chest. Another nearby looked as though he had simply tripped in the gravel courtyard they had found themselves in but Red saw he did not get back up.

"If we are this building at left," Vasilli explained in rough English over the sounds of gunfire, "We move through to have other buildings."

"Flank them, I like it," Fury nodded, understanding the plan, the team were now crouched down behind a tractor that sat in the courtyard, bullet ridden and immobile. "Sherlock on base of fire, GL through the window of the left hand building, Howler watch right when we break," Fury ordered quickly, "Vasilli on point, Red stay tight on me."

"Aye, Sir," Sherlock said.

"Rog," Howler confirmed.

"Move," Fury barked, and as the team split quickly Red charged at the left hand building behind their new guide as Sherlock's grenade launcher round shot into the window ahead of him and blew apart anyone looking to fire on the advancing soldiers.

He stacked up at the door and left Howler to watch it, firing to their right at the rest of the buildings that the loyalist forces were attacking whilst inside the left hand building Vasilli lead the way. Red edged into an open room with scorch marks on the walls from the recent explosion and charred bodies on the floor. Vasilli and Fury were in front of him and Red covered them as they moved to a door that lead to the next room.

A man ran through it dressed in ultranationalist uniform and Fury quickly grabbed the man's rifle and pointed it harmlessly up at the ceiling before Vasilli fired into the defender's exposed chest with an AK-47 rifle. Fury pulled the body out of their way and Red followed him into the next room. There were two more men at the window looking out over the courtyard firing wildly. They seemed unaware of the intruders sneaking through behind them. As Fury aimed his rifle at the one on the left, Red levelled his weapon at the man to the right and in an instant they had taken both men down before either knew what had happened.

Red saw that this room had a side door that lead out and in towards the next house to the right, Vasilli moved up to it and tossed a grenade into the door of the opposite building to clear the way for their flank attack.

"Howler, Sherlock, tighten up," Fury ordered over the comm. link and Red heard them move into the building and catch up to his position as the team ran out into the second building.

They stormed through without much resistance, a pair of guards attempted to stop their advance but Red and Vasilli gunned them down before they had reacted to their position being invaded from the side. There were only a handful of men in this small, bare house and none of them seemed to expect the footsteps they heard to be the enemy's so close, making them easy targets for Casual.

Red reloaded his rifle as they moved to attack the third house, but Fury stopped him and pointed out that the loyalist attack, now with two less buildings of resistance to deal with, had managed to capture this third house. Fury pushed Vasilli forward and up towards the hill, heading for the final house that their asset was in. Red opened fire on a few rebel soldiers retreating towards it as they went.

"God damn it, let's move!" Fury spat, not happy with how long it had taken them to finally begin approaching the building they had been sent for. "The asset may still be alive," he said, but he didn't sound convinced.

With Vasilli leading the way, Casual darted up the hill double time to where the two storey house loomed in the distance. There was no fire coming down from it but closed doors and window shutters suggested that there were hostiles ready and waiting inside for them. Red saw Fury put his shooting glasses away and pull out his night vision goggles to pull on, and the Russian fitted his own pair.

"Sherlock, go around the back and cut the power," the team leader instructed and Sherlock ran off to take away the defender's advantage of a prepared defence, "Everybody else get ready, NVG's on."

Red's world turned an eerie green with his goggles now on. He stood by the front door to the target house and around him Fury, Howler and Vasilli waited with their night vision gear on too. Waiting for Sherlock to cut the power, Red looked back down at the burning village, the sounds of battle now quieter as the conflict moved to other areas of the small settlement, this side now clear thanks to Casual's assistance. Hopefully Kholt would appreciate their help enough to forget they had threatened his life, Red thought. They still needed the loyalists to provide the helicopter for their extraction to the Romanian safe house after all.

What little light escaped through gaps in the door and the windows suddenly cut out and Red readied himself to move inside. Howler on Fury's signal worked a picklock in the key hole to the house and quickly, quietly turned the tumblers inside to unlock it.

"Alright, I've cut the power," Sherlock confirmed.

Red watched Fury as he put one hand on the door handle, the other kept his rifle raised, "Go," said the leader, and Red followed him into the dark of the house that was perfectly illuminated with their goggles.

A man inside was backing away from the door, blind in the dark. He raised his weapon towards the door and the sound of footsteps and began speaking in Latverian, sounding terrified as he reached behind him for the wall. Vasilli spoke something to him in Latverian and suddenly the man lowered his weapon. Howler shot him down.

"Ground floor clear," Fury said after Red rejoined the group having checked the other rooms on the level, "Move up the stairs."

Upstairs Red found a man sat in a corner firing his pistol randomly around him. Red ducked to avoid one of the rounds hitting him by chance and put a rifle shot through his head in response. Moving forwards again he peeked round a corner and saw a man inside with his rifle ready and a torch pointing towards Red. The Spetsnaz soldier ducked back as gunfire shot towards him, his eyes momentarily blinded by the light that was shone at his highly sensitive goggles. He signalled to Fury that there was a contact inside but before he could do anything about it he heard the sound of a struggle inside the room. Looking into it again, Red saw that Sherlock had climbed up the side of the building and snuck into the room from the window to slit the rebel's throat from behind.

"Too easy," Sherlock said to Red with a grin as he wiped his knife off on the leg of his dark uniform before sliding it back into a sheath at his hip.

Fury lead the team to a final room upstairs that was closed off, he indicated to Red who stacked up at the door with him and readied to breach in. Red looked to his leader who held up three fingers and counted them down before kicking open the door in a quick strike.

Red moved in straight away, he saw one unarmed figure on the floor with two more stood, weapons in hand either side. The Russian knelt to one knee and picked the one on the left, taking him down in a quick, controlled burst of fire. Over his head another member of Casual fired on the right hand target and within a second of Red entering the door there were no hostiles left standing.

Red let Fury step past him as they all pulled off their night vision goggles, plunging them into relative darkness that was quickly illuminated when Casual's leader turned on a flash light. Red watched as he grabbed the person on the floor and pointed the light into their face, the Russian kept his weapon trained on the as yet unidentified prisoner in case it was a trap.

"Look at me," Fury shouted urgently at the unarmed person who Red saw was dressed in loose fitting clothes and big military boots, "Look at me!" Fury shouted again before the prisoner recovered themselves and raised their head. "It's her," Fury confirmed, "Agent Romanova, are you alright?"

The red headed woman looked as though she had taken quite a beating with a split lip and a dark ring around one of her bright green eyes, she looked tired and dirty but with Fury's help she was quickly able to stand.

"I'm fine," She replied, Red recognised her Russian accent. She picked up the weapon of one of her dead captives, "Thanks for the assist, soldier, you got a way out?"

The team began to move back out of the house as Fury asked Vasilli to radio for their helicopter extraction. Fury, meanwhile, radioed SHIELD, "Control this is Casual, we have the Widow and we're heading for exfil now."

"Copy that, Casual," came the reply over the comm. link, and Red heard that the operative in Control speaking was Fisher, "Get the package on that bird and bring her home."

"Let's go," Fury ordered as the team ran out the back of the house and into the night again as up ahead a Latverian helicopter lowered itself into the grass. "Get on board, now!"

Red followed the team, turning to check they weren't being followed and seeing flashes of light from gunfire in the distance as the conflict continued without them down in the village. He ducked his head as he moved underneath the blades of the chopper. He watched to make sure that the Black Widow had climbed aboard before he jumped into a seat too, behind him Vasilli waited for them to take off.

"We ain't leaving you in a combat zone by yourself, Vasilli," Fury shouted to their guide over the beating of the helicopter blades, "Get your ass on this bird."

Vasilli smiled gratefully and jumped on, Red helped pull him up and the Latverian sat in a seat across from him in the large gunship. Fury told the pilots to move and although it they clearly didn't fully understand the language he was using they got the gist and took off quickly, heading for the border.

"You're the younger Fury, right?" Black Widow asked, nursing an injured side, recognising the likeness of the soldier to her former boss.

"That's me, m'am." Fury nodded, pulling out a cigar and lighting it before inhaling deeply on the pungent smoke.

"Did Control get my final transmission?" She asked, "I had to make it on an open frequency, it's what got me caught.

"Last thing we got from your end was the intel on the cargo ship," Howler told her as he stuffed his night vision goggles away in a pouch at his belt, "We hit it last night."

"The leader of the Ultranationalists," Black Widow said, "I found out who's behind all of this."

"You got a name for us, luv?" Sherlock asked as he reloaded his weapon, intrigued.

She nodded but the expression on her face suggested they would not be glad to hear what she was about to tell them.

"It's Dreadknight."


	3. Chapter Three: Walk It Off

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA

CHAPTER THREE: WALK IT OFF

Red sat in the helicopter staring out across farmland and insignificant little towns beneath him, they were almost at the border to Romania where the safe house was located. The soldiers around him sat with weapons on laps and their recovered asset, the Black Widow, dozed half asleep, tired from the beatings she had endured during her brief captivity. He thought on the information that she had provided them, that the super villain Dreadknight was leading the Ultranationalists. The tech based warrior was formerly a vigilante who had fought against Doom in the past although more recently fallen in line with the regime. But now it seemed he'd decided to rebel again without concern for the number of Latverian civilians who were being killed in the process. Red shrugged to himself, as a Russian he wasn't a stranger to regime change. He smelt Fury's cigar smoke drift past him and watched it vanish out the open side of the helicopter when he saw something that caught his eye.

The missile had come seemingly out of nowhere. Red suddenly saw the flare-like object chase after them, flitting through the air and angling for them fast. Before he could shout a warning Fury had spotted it too.

"Son of a bitch, Incoming missile!" Fury called out and began yelling at the pilots who desperately tried to swerve out the way of the projectile. Red, who did not like flying at the best of times, had been in enough helicopters to know that they lacked any real ability to duck and dive, and the stinger missile closed the gap between them in mere moments.

"Hang on!" Howler shouted as the impact caught the tail of the helicopter and Red's world began to spin chaotically around him.

Red hear the pilots shout into radios as they jabbed at controls and pulled on joysticks, whilst inside the passenger bay Vasilli slipped from his seat and Red reached out to grab him by the scruff of the neck to pull him away from the open side. His team mates cursed loudly around him and he saw Fury and Sherlock try to hold the Black Widow in place, her safety still their mission priority. As the chopper neared the ground that was rushing up in a dizzying motion to reach them they were all hurled out the sides.

Toppling through the air Red saw the flash of light and felt the heat of the exploding helicopter underneath him, behind him, in front of him as he bounced across grassy floor like a rag doll. He hit his head on a rock and without closing his eyes the night sky absorbed his vision and the stars went out. He felt his limbs go limp and suddenly he was unconscious.

Someone shook him awake. Aches and pains across his battered body began to make themselves known and the smell of smoke and burning quickly filled his nostrils. Standing over him was Fury who gave him a quick once over before insisting that he get to his feet.

"You're still in one piece, comrade," he said, helping to pull Red up off the ground, "Get up, come on. We need to get moving before the search parties get here."

Red staggered to his feet and Fury lead him over towards the burning husk of the helicopter, the fuel tank had ignited and burnt most of it out. Vasilli came over to him with a slight limp and handed Red his assault rifle that he had found in the grass, the Latverian gave him a nod of thanks for managing to stop him from falling out the chopper when it was higher in the air. Howler was helping the Black Widow to her feet, and Red was relieved to see she looked no worse off than the rest of them. Sherlock was clambering around on the helicopter remains, trying to see if the pilots were at all intact. The chopper had hit the ground nose first though and Red knew the men would have had the full, flaming weight of the vehicle land on top of them.

"Casualty report." Fury demanded.

"Both pilots are dead, Sir," Sherlock replied morbidly.

"Damn," sighed Fury, "Alright, the safe house's not far from here. Let's move out." As Red followed him and the others towards the Romanian border, he saw Fury talk into his radio to let their superiors know about the situation. "Control this is Casual, we've been hit by anti air fire and are proceeding on foot to the safe house. Package is intact, over."

"Roger that, Casual," Came Fisher's voice in reply, he sounded concerned but remained professional, "AC-130 gunship support is on the way, but it will take some time before they will be in a position to help, over."

"Copy," Fury replied, "Casual out."

"I guess Fisher got the green light to cross into the country's airspace," Howler noted.

"And an AC-130 at that," Sherlock said with approval, "Haven't worked with one of those in a while."

"Sir," Vasilli spoke up, "Ultranationalists are everywhere in north of my country, these part is theirs."

"We should keep a low profile," the Black Widow suggested.

"Agreed," said Fury, "Let's try and stay out of trouble."

Casual, Vasilli and the Black Widow moved through a field before sliding down into a ditch beside a road and moving down the boggy path to stay out of sight. The further they moved the closer Red guessed they were getting to another town or village, as the road suddenly had fencing down the side of it and up ahead a small stone bridge crossed over their ditch. Fury held up a clenched fist to indicate the group hold up when the sound of nearby cars caught their ears.

"Persons at the bridge," Vasilli whispered, and Red saw that there was a small group of torch carrying figures now stood ahead on the bridge.

"Guv," Sherlock warned quietly, "vehicles are coming from the north."

"Get under that bridge," Fury ordered as the men on top of it strolled down and onto the road. "Move it."

Red sprinted with the group and slid into the shadow of the bridge, the bright moon and starry night sky shedding more light on the team than they wanted. A convoy of what sounded like heavy trucks, perhaps military if Vasilli's fears were right, sped over their heads.

As the sound of the cars passed and the voices and footsteps of the patrol faded away, suddenly a new sound caught the ears of the team hiding under the bridge in the relative silence of the peaceful night. A stomping sound, a rumble of slow movement and a tremor in the ground as bushes shook around them. A searchlight suddenly blared out in the dark back the way they came, and Red could see it illuminating the smoking remains of their transport, looking for survivors.

"Doesn't sound like a helicopter, boss," Howler said, and Red agreed with his concern. Despite the light being suspended in the air if it was a chopper they would be able to hear it from this distance.

"What other kind of hardware do the rebels have access to?" Fury asked the Black Widow.

She shrugged, "All sorts. They've been buying from the black market and repurposing military equipment stolen locally. Nothing too unusual from what I've seen though."

"Tell that to the bloody Doombot they reprogrammed," Sherlock said sarcastically.

The Black Widow looked confused, "There was a Doombot on the freighter? You managed to kill it?"

"After a fashion," Fury said evasively, "We also found evidence of them being backed by HYDRA, they were the ones providing the WMD you sent us after. Looked like plans for the rebels to attack AIM on behalf of their new pay rollers."

"HYDRA and AIM are on the brink of a war," The Black Widow explained, "Perhaps HYDRA intend to weaken their enemy through other channels before sparking open conflict." She paused to think about their more urgent situation, "But if they have been giving the Ultranationalists their toys then that could be just about anything," she said, pointing at whatever the search light in the sky behind them was attached to.

"Oh good," Sherlock said, "I bet this is goin' to be a barrel o' laughs."

"Alright," Fury didn't sound at all phased by what Red considered to be a major concern. Mystery HYDRA tech searching for them in hostile territory wasn't a great situation to be in. "Let's move."

They left the sanctuary of the bridge and ran out again down the ditch before it levelled with the road further down. Red followed his leader as they moved onto a dirt path that cut across a field and, when fences and bushes blocked any easy path around them, they headed towards the sight of clustered buildings and found themselves at the back of a little wooden garage. Red heard voices on the other side of the small building.

"Hold up," Fury instructed and the team stacked up, ready and waiting at the door, "We've got company." The American lead the way inside, weapon first, and the team snuck in quietly.

It was empty but Red could now see through an open doorway and windowless frame across the garage from them that there was a trio of soldiers on a farmyard outside who were talking to an old farmer. The civilian looked panicked, and suddenly the soldiers pushed him to the ground and aimed their weapons at him.

"They think he is hiding us," the Black Widow translated quietly for the team, clearly having a good grasp on the language.

"We help him," Vasilli insisted.

Fury didn't seem to have any problem with the notion, "Alright, let's top these assholes before they kill the old man."

Red picked his target but before he could act on it The Black Widow had already opened fire, her shots fast and impossibly accurate, switching from one target to the next faster than the eye could follow. The ultranationalists dropped to the ground in pools of blood, craniums burst and bloody, and the panicked farmer scrambled away into the nearby farmhouse. Red looked at the woman with a mixture of admiration and intimidation, this agent was a living weapon.

"Area clear," Sherlock said as he edged out the doorway into the farmyard to ensure there were no more soldiers lurking nearby.

"Let's keep moving," Fury ordered, and Red paced quickly out into the open space with the team as they continued towards their objective.

They weaved between a few buildings before finding themselves back out in another field. Red jogged between hay bales and through long grass that clung to his legs before suddenly the sound of trembling arrived again. A search light came out of nowhere, shining down around the field up in front of them.

"Spotlight, hit the deck!" Fury hissed at the group and Red dived to the ground, hoping that his dark clothing would easily be able to conceal him should the light shine close.

He heard his leader whisper for everyone to stay down, but Red was more concerned now by the sound of large machinery, like a factory full of moving parts was moving towards them. His face, flat on the muddy floor, felt the vibrations of heavy steps getting closer. Daring to look up he could see now what looked like trees had appeared in the field under the search light that shone its beam around itself. The outlines of the tall trunks had no branches and seemed to bend fluidly, before suddenly they rose and planted themselves down elsewhere. The limbs stretched up forty feet to where the spot light gleamed in the dark, and they were coming closer to the group hiding in the grass.

Red heard someone whisper a warning that the light was going to pass over them and suddenly the beam swooped overhead and as the long limbs paced around the team, clawed feet crunching into the earth. The light passed without noting the hidden soldiers, but Red could now see from underneath the massive machine what it was that the Ultranationalists were using to hunt them down.

It was a HYDRA-bot. A massive, eight legged tank with an armoured cabin atop the limbs where the drivers sat. It's massive, skull shaped head was fixed with missile launchers and a machine gun as well as the search light that now slowly glanced away from the team. The limbs each had vice like talons for feet that could be used as offensive weapons to swat helicopters out of the air, tear down buildings or, unnervingly, crush unlucky infantry.

"Bloody hell," Sherlock muttered as soon as the walking tank was safely past, "They've got a sodding HYDRA-bot."

"It's moving away," Fury said calmly, "Let's go."

Red got up and ran with the rest of the team down the field and towards the barn house at the end of it. Suddenly he heard voices off to their left and hand held torches began to shine into the grass all about them. Red ducked down but shouts of urgency in Latverian from the edge of the field suggested that a large patrol of soldiers were helping the HYDRA-bot in its search and had spotted the team. To confirm Red's worry, they started firing and bullets cut through the vegetation around him.

"They're on to us!" Howler warned.

"Get to cover!" Fury shouted as he lead the group in a sprint for the barn house, "Move!"

Red bolted across the field as bullets fired wildly around him in the night and the torches seemed to struggle to keep track of the team. Regardless, the closer to the barn the more soldiers were alerted to their presence and soon despite getting a good distance away from the first rebels to spot them, they were now even closer to the newer arrivals.

As soon as they reach the barn Red skidded to a knee and found a cellar door on the ground that was angled down at the stairs hidden behind it. He grabbed at the handles and pulled but it was locked shut from the other side.

"Red, Sherlock, we'll hold them off," Fury said behind him as the group hunkered down and began picking off targets in the distance, aiming at the torch lights pointed in their direction, "get that door open now!"

Red was joined by the SAS man as he fired his rifle into the lock allowing Sherlock to quickly pull open the door that lead down into the relative safety of the dark cellar.

"The door's open, Fury," Sherlock reported.

"Get in the house!" Fury shouted at the team and Red stood aside and fired his rifle out into the field as the torch lights got closer and closer to their position.

Sherlock lead the way down to make sure it was clear and then Red let the Black Widow get down the stairs, followed by the rest of Casual and Vasilli before he too ducked down the steps. Bullets flattened themselves into the wall around him as he grabbed the door and pulled it shut behind them. Howler came back up with what looked like a bicycle chain he had found in the basement and handed it to Red who used it to tie the door shut, the lock having been blown apart by his rifle earlier.

Moving downstairs Red saw a bike lying on the floor with its chain missing, a few boxes of farm equipment and some stairs at the far end that the team were now moving up. After reaching the next floor himself, Red could see out the windows that there was a rise in the terrain around the house which now put them on the ground floor. Suddenly up ahead a door was kicked in and something heavy bounced down a corridor towards them.

"Flash bang!" the Black Widow warned, and Fury stepped up to it and kicked it back around the corner and into its previous owners.

Red heard it detonate and men round the corner shouted and swore in Latverian from their backfired plan. He and Vasilli leaned out of a nearby window and gunned down the two men waiting for them just outside the front door of the house in a quick spray of bullets.

Moving outside into a small courtyard between houses, Red scanned the shadows for signs of more enemy soldiers but couldn't see any movement. He stepped round the circumference of the open space as the rest of the group did the same, scouting out their position and standing in a circle facing outwards so that everyone's back was covered.

"It's too quiet..." Sherlock decided.

"Where the hell did they all go?" Howler asked no one in particular.

"They are regroup," Vasilli guessed.

The Black Widow agreed with him, "They're trying to cut us off somewhere up ahead."

"Stay sharp," Fury warned them as they continued through the buildings, "Let's press on."

The group picked their way through some desolate and rundown buildings without any signs of hostile activity. Eventually Red found himself looking out at a series of greenhouses leading up to a barn further down a rugged and muddy road. Peeking into the grimy windows at over grown or dying plants inside the green houses he spotted movement inside.

"Hold on," Howler told the team as he saw the patrol as well, and the team ducked below the window line.

"It looks like they don't know where we are," Fury observed quietly, and Red saw that the group were moving away from them and out of the greenhouses, "Let's keep it that way."

Red stayed perfectly still and waited for the men to give up their search of the greenhouses and move away from the glass buildings. Eventually Fury peeked inside again and with a wave of his hand the team rose and advanced inside the jungle like greenhouse. Looking up Red saw the stars blurred by mucky glass overhead, he stepped over smashed plant pots and checked that every reaching, hand like shadow was nothing more than another leaning plant as he manoeuvred his way through them.

Suddenly the plants began to shake around them as they moved into the middle of the greenhouses, plant pots toppled and smashed on the floor and hanging baskets were shaken loose and spilled dry dirt and dying vegetation on the ground. Red looked around him for signs of the HYDRA-bot that the tremors indicated was close, but before he could see it suddenly the search light was shining down into the green houses.

"Stay out of the light," Fury told the team, who ducked into the plants and under tables of potted vegetables as the beam swung past nearby to glare into the greenhouse they had just left. "Let's move, but stay low."

Red cautiously moved forwards again, hunched down and trying his hardest not to disturb his surroundings in case the machine hunting them noticed the resulting commotion. It didn't matter though, within a minute of the HYDRA-bot's return the light caught the group half crawling through the midst of the glass buildings. A heavy mechanical groan suggested the vast machine was suddenly bearing down on them fast as Red heard glass smash in a nearby green house as a tentacle like leg of the walking tank stepped through it.

"We're compromised!" Black Widow warned.

"Screw it, run!" Fury shouted and the team didn't hesitate as suddenly machine gun fire from the HYDRA-bot began to shatter the glass all around them and tear apart plant life with barbaric ease.

Red pushed Howler forwards in front of him as he got caught in a hanging vine and tried to stop himself from tripping on net like plant branches under his feet. Glass began to rain down around him and the entire structure of one of the green houses next to the one they were in collapsed to Red's right under the immense fire power that was now coming down on them. A huge metal leg crashed down into the building they were in and Vasilli pulled Red back and away from it as it rose up again, its claw foot snapping in the air in an attempt to pluck a soldier out of the group.

"Jesus Christ!" Red heard Sherlock shout up ahead as he and Vasilli ran to catch up with the others, another leg stamped down through the glass just behind them. "Watch out!"

"Move, move, move!" Fury yelled at the group, two more legs stamping down either side of the group as they dived into the next green house, running as fast as they possibly could in the confines of the building.

"Ah shit!" Howler cursed, "It's coming down! Get out!"

Red saw what he meant quickly, the green house they were in was toppling down, its flimsy metal frame not built to hold again the kind of damage it was taking. Ahead of him Fury and Sherlock jumped into the last green house in the row whilst Sherlock pulled Black Widow into it after them. Red and Vasilli were too far back to make it through though and so Red grabbed their Latverian ally and pulled him down to the ground before aiming his rifle up and shooting the glass out above them. The pane that collapsed over their heads fell in shards and bounced off their armour and landed around them like hail, relatively harmless as the rest of the now empty frame shattered about them violently.

Vasilli recovered fast and pulled Red along behind him into the final glass house even as the Russian felt the ground get torn apart by more limbs stabbing behind him. He heard a missile get fired down at them from above, the head of the HYDRA-bot looming over him, and he felt the booming impact a little way behind him, thankfully unable to accurately pinpoint a target as its search light flittered about the group in an attempt to track their rapid movements.

"We'll try and lose it in the barn house," Fury said, thinking quick and hoping that the machine would lose track of them if they could hide in the large building before it caught them.

"Hostiles up ahead," Warned Sherlock as it became clear that the barn was defended.

Fury ordered the group to open fire and Red did so happily, glad to be given a target he could do some damage to, the HYDRA-bot being just about impervious to small arms fire. He heard the machine behind them searching the other green houses nearby, not sure if they had already left the cluster of glass buildings, giving them time to try and get to the barn. He fired at the substantial group of soldiers up ahead, joining the others in tossing what grenades they had left.

"Skirmish chain," Fury said, "Advance on me."

Red darted out to one side of the group as they formed a loose, mobile line, firing as they went at a good pace towards the barn. As small, individual targets they proved harder to hit than the bunched up enemy who Red now saw had prepared sandbags and some farm machinery as cover for themselves. The grenades had done their job though and there were none of the enemy left by the time the team closed the distance down to a few yards. Red heard Howler groan nearby and turned to see what had happened.

"Howler, sitrep," Fury demanded as he noticed the soldier's pain.

"Son of a bitch shot me in the damn shoulder," He replied, sounding more annoyed than anything else, "Through and through, Sir, I'm green."

"I'll clear inside," The Black Widow said as she disappeared into the barn to make it safe for them to hide in as Red saw the HYDRA-bot begin searching the area outside of the green houses. He followed her in to help keep her safe but before he got through the barn doors he heard gunfire. Stepping in, he saw that the assassin had singlehandedly killed maybe a half dozen armed hostiles in just a few brief seconds. Red looked at her in awe, but she didn't seem at all phased by the grim and impressive work. He wondered how many Ultranationalists had been killed capturing her alive.

"Mates, it's our lucky day!" Sherlock called out as they all moved inside and the group turned to look at what he had found, "Well, sort of anyway," he added when Howler glared at him, still holding his bleeding gunshot wound.

"Stinger missiles," Black Widow said, and Red saw that amongst a small pile of weapons and ammunition they had finally gotten their hands on something big enough to damage the HYDRA-bot. "That might just work."

"It'll slow it down at the very least," Fury agreed, grabbing one of them and indicating to Red to do the same. "Red, grab that stinger and let's take down that HYDRA-bot. The rest of you look out the other side of the barn, see if you can find us a vehicle to use in case this doesn't work."

Red followed Fury out the way they came as the rest of the group headed out the back to find a quick escape from the nightmare that their simple extraction had become. His rifle was slung over one shoulder and he hefted the huge stinger missile launcher on his shoulder, the massive, heavy weapon weighing him down. They took up position hunkered down behind the sand bags that their enemy had so recently been using as cover themselves, and aimed up at the towering HYDRA-bot that was now headed towards the barn, swinging its searchlight around, unaware that it was now becoming the target itself.

"Let's put this HYDRA hardware to the test, comrade," Fury said to Red, "Do it."

Red aimed the simple self guidance system and waited for the electric beeping tone turn to a constant noise that indicated the weapon had got its lock on the enemy vehicle. He squeezed the trigger and braced himself as the rocket shot out of the launcher. The kickback almost knocked over backwards as the smoke filled his vision for a moment before clearing. The sound of the shot rung in his ear, coupled with the noise of Fury's that had launched at the same time.

The two missiles flew up in the sky and angled themselves towards the target, weaving almost playfully in the night air as the bright lights trailed smoke and shot away from the barn. One of the stingers caught a leg of the HYDRA-bot and it suddenly staggered, no doubt slowed by the loss of a limb as the bottom half of the damaged tentacle dropped off and slammed to the ground. But it still had seven legs to move on, and so Red was glad to see the second missile glanced across the side of its skull like head. The machine looked shaky from the impacts but now turned to the barn and began to advance. Red could see that the second shot had at least knocked out some of its armament at the least, and it was indeed moving slower now.

"Nice shooting, Red, that'll have to do," Fury said, and the pair dropped the empty launchers and ran back into the barn.

"Got us a truck out back, guv," Sherlock told Fury as he lead them out to the road behind where Vasilli was behind the wheel, Howler and the Black Widow already sat in the open back of the agricultural vehicle.

"Mount up and move out," Fury told the team, and as he slid into the passenger seat Red clambered into the back with the others.

As he did, the barn behind them was suddenly torn apart by the HYDRA-bot. The tall wooden structure began to crumple and collapse as metal limbs ripped it apart and the giant machine moved through it, looming above the building and crushing what was left of it under its surviving legs. Red watched as it closed on them, the head smoking from the stinger missile but looking no less daunting. To make matters worse, as Vasilli fired up the engine Red heard it die out before they started moving.

"Get it going, Vasilli!" Red heard Fury shout at him, "Move this piece of shit now!"

Red heard the Latverian try the engine again and again but it wasn't getting anywhere fast, and the searchlight of the HYDRA-bot was now looking down at them. Fury kept shouting and cursing at Vasilli for him to move and move fast, but it wasn't helping. Red and the others opened fire almost pointlessly with their rifles at the oncoming threat.

"I try again," Vasilli said, "Don't be using these bad words at me!" he snapped back fearlessly at the SHIELD team leader and Red wished he could have seen Fury's face as the soldier told him to quit the foul language but he was more concerned with the advancing HYDRA tank.

"Casual this is Warhammer," an American voice came over the team's radio frequency, "We're entering your airspace now. Heard you could use some help down there, call the shot."

"Warhammer, fire mission: danger close," Fury instructed as Vasilli finally managed to get the car working and they began to pull away from the HYDRA-bot even as the limbs came crashing into the ground metres from them, "We're in a civilian vehicle, enemy armour on our six."

"Copy, coming down," The AC-130 pilot confirmed.

At first machine gun fire seemed to shoot down from the stars, clanging against the HYDRA-bot that seemed to ignore it as the predator focused intently on its fleeing prey. Red heard Fury shouting at Vasilli to drive faster and Vasilli shouting back that he was going as fast as he could. Meanwhile the AC-130 began using something a little bigger than its gattling guns. Suddenly heavy 40mm bofur rounds began to smash into the ground around the HYDRA-bot as it reached forwards towards the escaping car. Impacts hit its legs and eventually a couple caught its head, getting its attention and stopping its advance. It turned and looked up into the sky, but Red knew the aircraft flew too high to be spotted in the dark even on a cloudless night. As soon as the truck had sped a couple of hundred metres clear from the preoccupied HDYRA-bot the AC-130 gunners used a 105mm howitzer and as it exploded in the midst of the machine's legs a smoke cloud blocked Red's view of their former pursuer.

"Oh, that's bloody outrageous!" Sherlock cheered.

Wind and dust from the blast caught up with the truck and washed over Red as behind him he saw the HYDRA-bot lying in the ground, a couple of tentacles struggled to raise its heavy head before sparks flew from its damaged parts and some kind of fuel container inside it caught light and it exploded into scrap metal.

"Thanks for the assist, Warhammer," Fury told the AC-130.

"No problem Casual, we'll cover you all the way to the safe house, get movin'," The pilot replied to Red's relief.

"Copy that," Fury said, before Red heard him switch frequency, "Control this is Casual, we're en route to the safe house, ETA twenty minutes."

"Roger that Casual," Fisher replied, "I hope you enjoyed the fireworks."

"Too right we did," Sherlock remarked, "How's the shoulder, mate?"

"I'll live," Howler said, "Not the first time I got shot, won't be the last."

It was only now that he was sat in the bumpy truck that Red realised how tired he was. After their mission on the freighter last night, storming the village earlier in the evening and now out running Ultranationalists and their HYDRA vehicle. He was almost out of ammunition, aching from being thrown out of a helicopter and bleeding from a dozen cuts he received when running through exploding green houses.

"Widow?" Fury leaned out the window of the passenger seat to speak to the spy, "You still in one piece, m'am?"

"I am," She said, before adding to him and the team: "Thank you."

"So," he continued, "Any chance you know where we can find this Dreadknight pal of yours?"

"I might have an idea, yes," The Black Widow replied after a pause of thought.

"Good," Fury said, "Because kicking his door in just found its way to the top of our to do list."


	4. Chapter Four: Cold Calling

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATERIA

CHAPTER FOUR: COLD CALLING

"Your men have done enough, Fury," Major Avery insisted, and despite Red's fatigue he was disappointed to hear that now, having reached the hideout and completed their rescue mission, Casual were not going to be following up with the hunt for Dreadknight. "You need to get them to the infirmary, get chow and rest up. They'll be other fights."

Red waited with the team behind Fury as he spoke over the video transmission to the aging face of Avery on the other end back at a SHIELD HQ somewhere else. He was a veteran officer of the agency and now headed many of the special operations the organisation ran, including overseeing Casual's missions. The Black Widow had told them the location of Dreadknight's hideout, expressed her thanks again and was now being shipped off elsewhere already on a new mission. Meanwhile, Fury had requested permission to go after the leader of the Latverian Ultranationalists that she had identified, Dreadknight, but he had been denied.

"We're already in the field," Fury pointed out, "We've got contacts with local military personnel and my team are fully briefed on the situation."

Red looked to the monitor in the small, dimly lit room on which he could see Avery shaking his head. He heard Sherlock helping patch up Howler behind him, the latter having taken a bullet through the shoulder at the tail end of their recently completed last mission.

"There are more teams than just yours, Fury," Avery reminded him, "Teams that haven't just run two high priority ops inside twenty four hours or recently been thrown out of an exploding helicopter."

"We're still the best you got," Fury insisted, "We know exactly what it is we're up against and The Widow gave us the location of the hideout the target is held up in. We're good to go."

"You're an obsessive bastard," Avery informed Fury, "You're going to get yourself and your team killed at this rate."

"If that's the case we'll be sure to cap Dreadknight on the way out, Sir," Fury said stubbornly.

Avery sighed, "Alright, the mission is yours. I'll speak to control about getting you a helicopter in the air for transport and support."

"Copy that, Sir," Fury sounded relieved and eager, Red was amazed by his tirelessness, "Thank you." He turned off the screen and looked back to the team, focused and composed again. "Gear up and find some grub, we redeploy in twenty minutes. And Howler? Pack us a present for Dreadknight, see what this place has in store."

A helicopter arrived promptly, and the American pilots of the Black Hawk listened closely to Fury's instructions to rendezvous with the ground team Vasilli had been preparing for them. Red had heard Fury talking with their new ally in the safe house over a satellite phone, apparently the soldier was a paratrooper and he had taken the truck they escaped in back to his men. After being granted permission by a superior officer his team had been redeployed near to the hideout and were now waiting on Casual to arrive to lead the attack. The team climbed into the helicopter and headed back into Latveria.

"Y'all seeing this?" Howler indicated down across the landscape a few minutes after they had crossed the border, where for miles on end villages and small towns smoked and blazed, but with no military presence in the area it looked as though the entire area had torn itself apart over night.

"I thought Latveria was supposed to be lovely this time of year, so what the bloody hell's been going on here, then?" Sherlock asked, observing the madness himself.

"Not sure," Fury admitted, "Vasilli's been on the ground all night and he's in touch with Colonel Kholt, he might have some answers for us when we reach him."

A few minutes later and the helicopter landed near a small set of buildings where gunshots rang out in the night and fires flickered from the burning rooftops. Fury instructed the pilots to wait until the attack began for them to lift off again, at which point they would provide close air support as the team moved into the settlement. Red worried that the obvious signs of conflict meant their target may have already left his position, that Dreadknight would be dust in the wind.

The dark of the previous night still made visibility low as Fury lead them to a small farmhouse up ahead and Red couldn't see any movement. He watched the team's backs as they edged inside the wooden building and followed them after ensuring they hadn't been tracked. But as he turned into the building he suddenly realised that it was not outside that warranted concern, but inside.

Red saw that Casual had already raised their rifles as what looked like loyalist soldiers pointing their weapons back at them. Red took aim, but there were a dozen Latverian soldiers aiming at them from all sides, despite the supposed alliance that existed between them.

"You want to lower your weapons?" Fury asked patiently, "Thought we were all on the same side here."

"I should kill you," One of the men said, a short but muscular man with a beret on his head, "Traitors."

"Name calling from a Latverian?" Sherlock sounded amused.

"Easy, Sherlock," Fury hissed before turning back to the loyalist, "Who are you, soldier?"

Suddenly a man in civilian clothes, bound and gagged, was pushed out of the shadows of the farm house and to Fury's feet. He was grey haired and built like a boxer, he looked to be in his fifties and clearly was not in fear of his situation. Red could tell from his wounds that the man had been tortured, and that by the sounds he was making, albeit muffled, he was an American. Vasilli stepped forward out of the dark and pointed to the soldier with the beret.

"This is Corporal Franz," he explained, "a trusted friend, like I thought you as well."

"Vas," Fury spoke to him calmly, "Just tell us what's going on here."

"Militia have ripped north of Latveria to pieces, Fury," He said angrily, "This American man gave weapons on civilians, they fight ultranationalists, they fight loyalists, they fight themself. It doesn't matter. Country is gone mad!"

Fury lowered his weapon and indicated to his team to do the same, Red reluctantly obeyed and watched as Fury slowly removed the gag from the American prisoner's mouth, keeping his free hand where Vasilli and Franz could see that he meant no harm.

"Identify yourself," Fury ordered the prisoner.

"Agent Harper," he said, his gruff voice strained from pain but calm, "I'm CIA."

"Balls..." Red heard Howler say under his breath.

"I'm assuming you're here to take advantage of this shit storm, Agent?" Fury asked, unimpressed.

"My team Red Hawk were inserted to help influence affairs," explained the Agent with a slight smile, "The opportunity to get rid of Doom presented itself and you know the drill, soldier, we jumped into bed with the people behind it. The four of us helped set up the militia here to give us a distraction so that we could manipulate events, but we lost control. They went ape shit with the hardware, turned the region into a blood bath."

"Damn it," Fury stood back up, "Vas we had nothing to do with this, you have to believe me."

"He doesn't have to believe anything you say," Franz snapped back.

"Vasilli look at me," Fury ignored the Latverian's heated right hand man, "The objective stays the same, if Dreadknight goes down the war ends and you can start to demilitarise the militia. Hit the hideout with us, help us to help you."

Vasilli looked conflicted, "Kholt has given me order to abandon mission," he said, "He won't help you any again. But he'll be busy with this mess." He sighed, "We will help you."

"Get this filth out of our country," Franz told Fury, who Red saw acknowledge the request before instructing the CIA Agent to head out to the helicopter which was still waiting in the field on the edge of the village. He thanked Fury for his rescue, but Fury didn't reply.

"Casual to Control," he instead spoke into his radio as the large group moved back out of the farm house and began advancing towards the heart of the village.

"Go ahead, Casual," replied Avery from control, apparently sitting in on this mission.

"We've got a situation down here, Sir," Red heard Fury begin to explain, "Loyalists just handed us a CIA agent who infiltrated the country to stir the pot. Apparently The Company has hooked up a local militia with firearms and it's come back to bite us. This entire area has torn itself apart."

"Jesus," Red heard Avery's reaction over the comm. link, "Well at least it sounds like the chances of your target being in his hideout just increased. Stay on mission, Control out."

"Ultranationalists are fight militia in village," Red heard Vasilli warn Casual as the group moved on.

"You call the rules of engagement, Vasilli," Fury said, allowing the Latverian to decide how to handle the out of control militia who were nothing more than armed and panicked civilians after all.

"Return fire if necessary," He decided, "But kill rebels."

"Amen to that," Howler agreed, and Red noticed that apparently the growing daylight was enough for the big man to put on his aviator sunglasses.

Red moved through trees and bushes before his boots began jogging down a dirt path, he saw Fury signal for the unit to hold up and he took a knee, rifle at the ready. He hadn't seen them before but now Red realised what Fury had called the halt for as a group of Ultranationalists ran onto the road towards them, apparently running from the fire fight in the village. Red fired and Franz next to him opened up as well, gunning down the rebels before they even noticed the danger they were running into.

"Out of the frying pan..." Sherlock commented.

"There are four buildings in this part of village," Vasilli told them, "Hideout at back."

"Then we'll have to take them one at a time," Fury realised, "I'll take this first building and the second further down the road, you take this one on the left up the hill. We'll reconnect afterwards and hit the target together."

"Very well," The Latverian nodded, before turning to Franz and sending his men up a steep slope and towards a large, three storey building to the left that was surrounded by civilian dressed gunners and occupied by ultranationalists firing down on them.

"Casual, let's move," Fury ordered, and Red fell in behind his team mates as they advanced on the nearest building, a two story house with gunfire shooting out of it and across at the militia outside the position the loyalists were now advancing on.

"Red, toss a nine banger," Fury instructed as the team stacked up at the back door to the house which had been left open to provide an easy escape for the rebels inside in case the militia turned their attention to the house.

Red pulled out the flash bang, primed it and tossed it into the room at a wall so that it bounced round a corner and well into the first room. The nine banger, true to its name sake, emitted nine short bursts of light and noise within just a couple of seconds in a relentless assault on the senses for anyone inside the room. He then waited for the team to move in before he followed and by the time he was in Casual had already eliminated the three men inside the room.

As ordered by Fury, Red and Howler moved upstairs to search for more hostiles whilst the others cleared the rest of the rooms on the ground floor. Red slung his rifle and pulled out his sidearm to allow for quick movement in the tight confines of the house, climbing up the stairs behind his American colleague who gunned down a Latverian waiting at the top of the final flight of steps for them.

Red saw a door ease shut as a soldier on the other side attempted to hide in waiting. The Spetsnaz soldier simply opened fire with his pistol into the thin wooden door, unloading half the magazine before then pulling the door handle and finding and wounded hostile on the other side. Red stepped over him and pointed his gun down at the injured man's head. The soldier reached up at the gun and tried to push the barrel away from his face but Red easily overpowered him and put a final round through his skull.

"We're good upstairs," Howler reported to Fury over the radio.

"Building's clear," Fury told them, "Regroup on me."

Red moved back down the stairs and took position at one of the windows. He was now looking out on the road that lead to the next building that Fury had told Vasilli they would hit. There were maybe forty or more Ultranationalists between Casual and the building, with even more inside. Their attention was on the building that Red could see the loyalists were breaching, and it looked as though most of their forces were using this next building as a staging area to fight back the militia.

"We got a lot of bogeys out there, boss," Howler observed.

"Mosin 2-5 this is Casual," Fury spoke into his radio to the helicopter pilots waiting nearby, ready to be given the order to provide support. "We need a gun run down the main road towards the building on the east side of the village."

"Mosin 2-5 here," the voice of one of the pilots came back over the radio, "We're on the way. Standby for air support."

Suddenly the road to the second building was illuminated by machine gunfire. Dozens of soldiers were mowed down and torn apart. The force of the heavy rounds slammed the victims into the dirt as they were riddled with bullets. Red watched as the Black Hawk flew overhead, following the road and filling it with a flood of white hot steel hail before turning and flying away as it reached the house at the far end.

"Firing run complete," the pilot told Casual, "We'll pull back until you need us again."

"Copy that, Mosin," Fury replied with his radio, "thanks for clearing a path." He turned to the team and Red waited for his order. "Let's move. Use the front door."

Red followed his team out the front door which was on the opposite side to the way they had come in and out into the road. The four men moved through the rows of fresh corpses quickly and quietly, behind them Vasilli's men were now inside their building, killing the ultranationalists inside and attempting to broker a cease fire with the militia who milled around outside. Fury had the team stop and get low, hiding in between the bodies of the helicopter's victims as behind the building they were moving on militia suddenly swarmed from the darkness.

"Hold fire," Fury ordered, "Let's see how this pans out."

Red waited, aiming his rifle at the throng of the civilian mob who ran at the house with guns cradled in arms. Clearly none of them having any idea how to properly use one but Red knew that fifty untrained combatants could still take a house filled with ten professionals if they were caught off guard like this. They were shouting and firing wildly up at windows, a few of them climbed up guttering or clambered through broken windows, others kicked in the front door and streamed inside or pulled open a hatch into the cellar. Red could tell by the gunfire inside and the bodies falling back out of the house that the defenders were holding their own, but it wouldn't last long against the frenzied mob.

"These Latvies are bloody mental," Sherlock shook his head before he noticed something, "Eyes on a prisoner," he whispered, pointing to several figures in the militia dragging a bound man at gun point towards the house.

"Orders, Sir?" Howler asked, waiting for Fury to decide what to do.

The prisoner could have been an ultranationalist, but it seemed unlikely that the militia would kill them all in a mad frenzy apart from one. Which left just one option of who the prisoner could be, someone that Fury would have to decide whether or not they could compromise the mission to rescue.

"Goddamn CIA," muttered Red's leader, because of course this was another agent who this time had been snatched by the very people he had provided with firepower. "They've kept him alive this long, let's assume he's not in danger for now. We hold back until this fire fight concludes."

"Copy that," Sherlock said.

As he watched, Red could see more and more militia swarming inside the building, meaning that the defenders were being overrun, and soon enough one of the ultranationalists was thrown out of a window on the upper floor and kicked to death by those still outside. The militia had captured the building. Worse still, out of that top window suddenly appeared the CIA agent, he was pushed onto the window sill, squatting down in the frame of broken glass. Even from forty yards away Red could see in the dim morning light that he had a rope tied around his neck.

"God damn it," Fury spat.

Even as he said it the agent was kicked out of the window and began to swing, kicking and struggling, by his neck over the door to the house. Fury was up on his feet immediately and Red hoped that his leader had come up with an idea.

"Mosin 2-5," Fury spoke to the pilots over the radio, "immediate shock and awe on the east building." He turned to Casual, "Shoot the rope, now!"

Red opened fire on the slim, swinging target, careful not to hit the agent they were trying to rescue as he began to lose strength and stop twitching. One or more of the bullets caught the noose and Red saw the American drop to the floor. He wasn't moving but he might have only lost consciousness, not died. Before they could do anything to help him further, though, Fury had the team hold up and Red took a knee as their helicopter flew over the top of them and hovered in front of the building.

It fired its machine gun into the roof, the edges of the walls, the decking out the front, the grass around the basement hatch and wide into the banks around the building. The idea was that it would scare the inexperienced militia into running, and prevent Casual from having to decide whether or not to engage them. Red knelt in the gravel road and hoped the plan would work, the helicopter eventually pulled away and Casual waited to see what happened next. Suddenly a stream of militia ran out the back of the building and away from the village, rushing into the nearby trees, many of them having dropped their guns so that they weren't slowed down at all, a few carried boxes of loot taken from the house, but none of them saw Casual waiting outside.

"Let's go," Fury ordered, and Red followed him up to the front of the house where they found the CIA agent, battered and bruised and not moving. "Get him breathing," Fury ordered, Sherlock, "The rest of you clear the building."

Red moved inside to find the broken and lifeless bodies of militia and rebels alike strewn across the floor and furniture of the small house. He, Howler and Fury moved from room to room finding no one still alive. They headed upstairs, each room had the body of an ultranationalist in a concealed position and the dead bodies of the several militia he had taken down with him first before being discovered by the rest. As Red began to move back to the stairs suddenly something heavy landed on him from above with a maniacal scream.

White hot pain stabbed into his shoulder as the militia man who had hidden himself in the rafters before jumping out stabbed a knife into Red and clung onto him around his neck. Red dropped to his knees under the added weight of his attacker and flinched in pain but reacted quickly none the less. He slammed an elbow backwards into the man's gut and then reached over his head to grab the Latverian, pulling him over one shoulder and slamming him into the landing at the top of the stairs. The lithe attacker kicked out at Red who easily blocked the attack with one arm, but before he could counter a gunshot sounded behind him and the man went limp on the ground in front of Red. Looking round, Red saw Fury holding his smoking side arm.

"Don't tell Vasilli," He warned Red, who nodded.

As Red pulled the knife out of his shoulder with a grunt of pain Howler helped him up to his feet, "Making friends, man?" he laughed, offering to patch Red up who shook his head. He could dismiss the pain easily enough. The blade had deflected off his Kevlar vest and so hadn't dug too deep, it would simply add to his already impressive collection of battle scars.

"Sherlock, is he alive?" Fury asked as they moved back out to the front of the house.

"Got a pulse," Sherlock said, who had been doing CPR on the man whilst the others were inside. "He's coming around."

The agent coughed and wheezed himself into life, scratching at his neck where the noose had been before Sherlock cut it away with his combat knife. He looked panicked and worried by the soldiers who surrounded him.

"Inside," Fury instructed, and Red lead them back into the building as Howler and Sherlock dragged the resuscitated man behind them into the main room of the house. Red kicked a limp, bullet ridden body off a chair and the others sat the American intelligencer forcibly down on it. They stood around him, weapons slung but ready to use should he prove troublesome and Fury ordered him to talk.

"You're American?" He asked, "What are you, SEALs?"

"SHIELD," Fury replied.

"Oh," The Agent nodded, clearly not happy about the answer but knowing that at least he was in the hands of someone he was supposedly on the same side as. "I'm Agent Nielson, CIA. We've been setting up a militia movement. It didn't go as planned..."

"Yeah, no shit," Howler said.

"Loyalists handed us Harper, where do you think the rest of Red Hawk are now?" Fury asked.

"Richards was taking weapons out to some village nearby, god damn militia already killed him," Nielson explained, "Apparently they don't trust foreigners as far as they can throw them. But Hendrickson dropped off his lot without problems, last transmission I got from him he said was working a new angle down south."

"Alright," Fury nodded, "We still need to hit the hideout and get Dreadknight. On the off chance you come in handy, we're taking you with us." He then spoke into his radio as Howler handed the agent a weapon he picked off a dead body.

Red then followed the group out the back way and towards a long, sloping field outside of the house that lead to the hideout at the end of it, which looked like a converted barn. He saw Fury talk into his radio again: "Vasilli we're about to make our approach on the house now, are you ready to move?"

"Affirmative, Fury," Vasilli replied in Red's earpiece, "Militia will hold village to protect our exit, we move up to hideout now. Stay behind us."

Fury didn't look impressed at behind told to hang back, but he told their ally that he would and then lead the team out into the field. Up ahead Red could see the loyalist's group, a few men less than before, run up through the field. Moments later Casual jogged up after them as gun fire began pouring from the hideout into the open field where there was no cover and snipers had clear lines of sight down on the attackers.

Red dived to the ground and saw up ahead members of Vasilli's team get tagged by the incoming fire, blood spraying in the crisp morning air. Fury called in air support as the team crawled forwards on their bellies, staying low and hoping that they wouldn't be seen as they approached. Mosin 2-5 appeared over their heads and began to pour machine gun fire on the position, and under the cover of the helicopter Casual were up and running again, Red ignored the pain in his shoulder as he moved quickly up past bodies of Vasilli's dead soldiers and behind those still alive. Bullets shot up dirt around them but mostly went well wide of the group, the gunners in the hideout blindly firing out of the windows so as to better hide from the helicopter.

One of the incoming rounds hit Sherlock, however, and Red saw in the corner of his eye his team mate get thrown back to the ground by the force of the shot. Fury barked at the team to hold up and Red skidded to his knees, firing his rifle up at the building and waiting to hear whether or not the Englishman was alive or dead.

"Argh, bastard!" Sherlock groaned, cursing at his shooter, "Bloody arsehole!"

"Sherlock, you alright?" Fury asked him, concerned.

"Vest took most of the impact, Sir," he confirmed, and Red saw behind him the soldier pulling the dented round out of his vest there was blood on the end of it but it didn't look as though it had pierced his chest too deeply. "I'll be alright after I shoot a couple of the buggers."

"Then let's keep-" Fury began to say before he was suddenly cut off by a beam of hot red light that shot out from the barn up at the helicopter in the sky, glancing of the side as it narrowly missed the body of the aircraft.

Red saw the black hawk swerve and pull away, smoke flying from the impact of the shot. The pilots urgently told Fury they couldn't survive a hit from that kind of fire power and bugged out fast. Looking to the barn Red saw a figure emerge out the large front doors with a heavy weapon in his arms, he had skull emblazoned helmet and was dressed in heavy, dark blue battle armour, a battered cloak blew out behind him in the breeze.

"It's Dreadknight!" Fury warned, "Everyone stay low and keep moving!"

Red did as he was told and ran with his head down, thankful that the super charged laser the hostile was using was obviously either not accurate or else the villain was not an expert marksman having already missed his opening shot. His second shot with the massive weapon, however, was more destructive. It fired across the field and incinerated two men from the line of loyalists in front of Casual, the beam burnt straight through them and towards the SHIELD soldiers behind. It caught Agent Nielson in the chest and he was incinerated in half a second.

"Oh, shit!" Howler shouted appropriately.

"What the bloody hell do we do about that?" Sherlock asked Fury as the team recovered from the terrifying blast of the weapon which sounded something like crackling electricity and made the air smell of ozone in its wake.

"Grenade launchers," Fury instructed, and he and Howler who had them attached to their rifles took aim at the barn, "Force him back inside, fire!"

The two launchers shot grenades arching over the Latverian loyalists in front and down at the super villain up ahead. From what brief chance Red had to skim the SHIELD file of their target when they were back over the border in Romania he knew that such explosives wouldn't do too much damage, so at least they might still be able to take him alive. But he wasn't tough enough not to flinch at the blasts, one of which exploded beside him and knocked him back, the second caught him in the torso and balled him over and back inside the building.

"Close in," Fury ordered and Red followed up behind Vasilli's men.

Apparently Dreadknight had got involved because his snipers had been slaughtered by the helicopter, as there was now no more incoming fire reigning down on them from the barn windows. They stacked up at the door, now a much smaller group than the one which had begun the dash across the open field, but Red was pleased to see Vasilli amongst the survivors, his man Franz beside him.

"Remember," Fury spoke quietly, indicating to Howler to pull a piece of equipment out of his pack, "We need Dreadknight alive." Howler jerked out a large device that looked something like an unusual rifle with a thick, square end that lacked any kind of barrel, although the rear half included a trigger and stock.

Franz kicked open the door and Red followed Vasilli and Fury in, the two men moving inside the barn first. Vasilli used his pistol to shoot down three of their target's body guards instantly, proving himself to be quite the gunslinger, but before their bodies had hit the ground Fury squeezed the trigger of his device. The front half of the gun ejected fast, thrown forwards on a cable attached to the stock, and projected itself across the open barn floor at the armoured figure ready and waiting in front. The weapon was an oversized tazer designed by SHIELD to use on tech based hostiles, although typically it could prove temperamental in practice and lacked range beyond about six feet. It was, however, the only weapon they could find in the Romanian hideout that could be effectively used on such an opponent, and as such Red hadn't made any complaints when Howler dug it up.

Electricity shot across Dreadknight's armour and he began to spasm from the thousands of volts writhing through his suit, shutting down the systems and taking away any advantage he still had over the loyalists and Casual. Red and Franz grabbed him as soon as the currents stopped coursing through him and, on Fury's order, began using knives and rifle butts to strip off his armour.

Tied to a chair in the flight suit he wore underneath his combat armour, Dreadknight was dazed and barely conscious, his face still masked by the skull helmet which was in fact grafted into his skin. The team stood inside around him, Fury paced up to the prisoner and put his pistol to the man's knee cap.

"You've played hero in the past for your people, Velsing," Fury addressed the man by his civilian name, "We heard you accepted Doom's rule after your own stint failed. Why'd you start all this?"

"Our country is weak under Doom," He replied venomously, "We must be strong again, we must not subject ourselves to the rule of the westerners, we must fight the dictator."

"And HYDRA? What's your connection?" Fury asked. There was no reply at first, so Fury blew off his knee cap.

He screamed for a moment. Fury asked the question again, pointing his gun at the second knee, and then Dreadknight complied.

"A man approached us, said he would back our rebellion if we used some of the weapons he provided to hit targets he designated," Dreadknight explained, "I think they were AIM bases."

"Why is HYDRA using you to hit AIM?" Fury asked.

"I don't know," Dreadknight replied wearily, "After I heard the kind of gear he could provide I didn't question him. Then it began to arrive, we weren't contacted again."

"Who's 'we'?" Red heard intrigue creep into Fury's voice, "Do you mean the ultranationalists? The CIA? Or are you not running this party alone?"

Dreadknight did not reply. Before Fury could act on this, though, a satellite phone began to ring from amidst the super villain's stripped gear. Howler picked it up and tossed it to Fury who answered it without saying a word. A Latverian voice came through from the other side. Fury hung up the phone and tossed it to the ground. He aimed his pistol up at Dreadknight's head who began to scream in Latverian and struggle at his bindings. The gunshot put a stop to it instantly. The body slumped in the chair and the skull helmet was ruined with cracks across its surface originating from the bullet hole between the eyes.

"Who was that, Sir?" Sherlock asked, breaking the stunned silence.

"Kholt," Fury replied, "Colonel Kholt."


	5. Chapter Five: Earn Some Hazard Pay

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA

CHAPTER FIVE: TIME TO EARN SOME HAZARD PAY

The body of Dreadknight sat bloody in the chair, the men around it looked at each other, dumbfounded by the revelation that this super villain was in fact working with a man inside the Latverian military. None other than Colonel Kholt himself.

"I don't understand," Vasilli was shocked.

"Boys?" Fury turned to his men and Red shook his head to clear it, "Talk it through for our friend here."

"If Kholt was an ultranationalist then he'd be able to give the illusion of combating the threat whilst actually supporting it, supplying it with munitions and intel on loyalist forces," Howler said, thinking aloud at the advantages Dreadknight would have had by working with the Colonel.

"Also explains why he was the only man who would let SHIELD set foot in the country," Sherlock continued, "Keeps him in the loop on all foreign forces operating on his turf. He's probably the one who sent those jets to hit the freighter and tagged our chopper after we picked up the Black Widow. He's been trying to tie up the ends we keep loosening this whole time."

"One of our agents told us Kholt had taken the responsibility of locking down launch sites across the country to ensure the rebels couldn't spread the conflict," Fury reminded Vasilli who was no doubt involved in some such operations earlier in the conflict himself. "The CIA know the ultranationalists have HYDRA tech heading south, could include more WMDs and missiles like the gear we found on the freighter. He's setting up an international attack."

"I don't believe it," Franz said stubbornly.

"Well start trying, Corporal," Fury said impatiently. "It's quite simple. Either we retake the launch facility he's using or we won't recognise the world tomorrow."

The next few minutes was a flurry of activity. Vasilli and Franz spoke to some pilots they knew as paratroopers and arranged a HALO drop for them from an AC-130. They did so without alerting anyone higher up the chain of command and possibly under the direction of Kholt who might catch wind of it. Meanwhile, the helicopter pilots of Mosin 2-5 dropped off Red Hawk CIA team leader Harper and, running out of fuel, headed for the border.

"Listen up," Fury said, returning the group of soldiers waiting outside the barn after speaking to Control. "Fisher says the US Government just got sent a message from the ultranationalists telling them that they are about to pay for their war crimes against this country. Looks like Kholt's target is Washington. On the plus side, SHIELD have informed Latveria's military commanders and they've urged Doom to let us officially step in, so help is on the way. Realistically though, support won't arrive in time to help with the immediate threat. On top of that the Latverian military aren't sending us any back up because they haven't got a clue who could be involved with Kholt."

"So we're on our own," Vasilli realised.

"Ain't life a bitch?" Harper laughed, and Red thought the bearded veteran sounded excited by the danger.

Red did a quick headcount. There was the battle weary and injured four man Casual team, CIA Agent Harper who looked like he'd been in a fight with a brick wall, Vasilli who was in no better condition, Franz and three more of their paratrooper team still alive. Ten men against an army. Ten men to stop a madman from using weapons of mass destruction bought from HYDRA. The odds weren't in their favour.

"Sounds like a barrel o' laughs," Sherlock chimed in.

"So let's get to it," Howler racked a round into the chamber of his rifle.

Vasilli's pilot contact picked them up using the open field outside the barn as a makeshift runway. Red didn't know what was said between the paratrooper and the pilots but it sounded as though they were being very insistent that whatever favour they owed the soldier was now paid and that as soon as they had dropped the soldiers off they would be leaving. Red guessed that they were not entirely convinced of Kholt's betrayal. They were headed for a location picked out by Harper who's work with the Ultranationalists gave him an insight into Kholt's plans. He said that his mission had ended the moment American lives were put in danger, a sentiment Red hadn't found particularly reassuring and he could tell Franz wasn't happy either.

A HALO jump was a High Altitude, Low Opening parachute jump which basically meant a death defying stunt out of an aeroplane that made it very difficult to be tracked or spotted by hostiles in the area. The group split into two teams, Vasilli and his paratroopers jumped first aiming to land just outside the launch facility whilst Casual and Harper would jump second and land further out near an electricity pylon.

The back of the AC-130 opened after the short flight, Vasilli's team jumped, the plane banked to the second location and the green light clicked on overhead again. Red leapt into the air and hurtled towards the ground, shooting through cloud and thin air, remaining in formation with the rest of the second team and keeping his eye on a device on his wrist that measured altitude so that he knew just how long he could wait before having to deploy his parachute. The sun was getting higher in the sky now, it was early morning and light was flooding across Latveria.

He pulled the chute open as it began to look like the ground was going to greet him violently any second and was suddenly jerked back upwards, his fall stalled by the blossoming green canopy over his head. Red floated down towards the grassy floor below, the rest of the group swinging below their chutes all around him. He landed and detached his parachute, quickly bundling it up into a bag lined with camouflage netting so that he could simply ditch it and not worry about it being easily discovered by enemy patrols. Time was against them and lugging used gear was not necessary, not when the enemy would know they were here soon enough anyway.

"Form up on me," Fury ordered them and Red jogged over to his team leader who had landed perhaps fifty yards from him. "The suns coming up," Fury said as the team regrouped, "We're running out of time. We need to knock out that tower so that the advance team can breach the electrified perimeter."

Fisher had been able to get satellite imagery of the launch facility Harper had deduced Kholt would be using, and Red remembered that it had shown tall electric fences around the perimeter that would prove difficult to breach. So, Casual and their CIA ally now moved on the nearby towering pylon to knock out the primary power, whilst Vasilli's team prepared to cut them a way in through the fence before any kind of backup generator could kick in.

"Enemy helicopters," Sherlock warned the team as they moved for the pylon that they had deliberately landed nearby.

Red dove to the ground and a pair of helicopters shot over head, apparently not noticing the intruders lying in the thick grass.

"Air patrols over a disused launch facility?" Harper said, "Looks like I found us the right place."

"My team in position at perimeter," Vasilli said over the radio as Red and the others got back to their feet and ran up to the pylon. "Waiting for you to kill power."

"Roger," Fury replied to the Latverian, before turning to the others, "Red, Sherlock, plant the charges. Go."

Red moved over to one of the pylon's four legs, pulled out the C4 charge from his pack and stuck the device to the metal at head height on the foot of the towering structure. Howler did the same on the next leg and the pair backed off and away from their primed explosives.

"Charges set," Howler reported, "Everyone get clear."

"Red, do it," Fury ordered.

Red obliged him by hitting the remote detonator he pulled from his utility belt and the two explosives blew apart simultaneously. They each carved clean through the metal legs of the pylon that suddenly now had no support under one side and it slowly leaned and fell with a groan. It pulled the web of power lines down with it, crashing to the ground in front of the waiting soldiers.

"Vas, the tower's down and the power's out, you've got maybe twenty seconds," Fury told Vasilli over the radio.

"We're breaching perimeter now, standby," Came the reply.

"Hurry it up, man..." Howler urged quietly.

"Standby," Vasilli said again, before confirming success on their end. "We are through. We wait for you here. Out."

"Let's go," Fury said to the group, and Red joined his teammates in a quick run downhill to the electric fence at the bottom which encircled the launch facility.

"Heads up, boys!" Harper called out, and the team once again ducked down as helicopters flew above them.

"Gonna get real busy around here soon..." Howler said, and Red knew that he was right. They had no doubt been sent to investigate the pylon and it would quickly become clear the facility was under attack.

Red was up and running again momentarily, and soon enough the soldiers were reunited at the fence. Vasilli's paratroopers had cut a large hole in the mesh-like metal fence for them to slip through without having to come into contact with the electrified steel powered by the backup generators. Red ducked through and saw Fury, Harper and Vasilli meet, about to speak about the next step before the three men stopped as the ground trembled. They looked towards the buildings below in the launch facility as something distracted them.

Red looked too and felt his gut tighten quite suddenly. A missile shot into the air, bounding vertically up into the sky above with flames gunning out underneath it and trailing smoke in its wake. They were too late, Kholt's plan was already in effect and America's capital city had a HYDRA missile, probably nuclear, headed straight for it.

"Err, we got a problem here, Guv..." Sherlock said, unable to find the words to properly explain the situation.

"Control," Fury shouted into his radio, snapping into action, "We have a missile launch, I repeat we have a missile-"

Before Control could reply or Fury could finish his message a tremor rolled through the floor below them and a second missile towered up into the air above, chasing after the first which was now almost out of sight. Harper cursed beside Red who heard the Latverian paratroopers talk frantically in their own language amongst themselves.

"Control we have two missiles in the air, over!" Fury reported urgently.

"Roger that, Casual," Replied Major Avery at control, "Our satellites are tracking them now."

"Avery, get Agent Fallon to hack the abort codes for those missiles," Fury said to the Major, hoping that the technical genius could get the required information in time, "We'll get into the facility and retake the launch control centre."

"It's too late," Vasilli muttered weakly, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"Not yet it ain't," Fury insisted.

"It's on now, fellas," Harper added.

The team sprinted down into the launch facility, every second now counted. As they got nearer Red saw that a lot of the shapes he had seen from above in the hills were storage crates and shipping containers, there were some buildings, maintenance panels and guard towers but mostly open ground. Open ground that was teeming with enemy soldiers.

"Helicopters!" Sherlock shouted, and suddenly the ground around them was alive with gun fire as it sprayed down from the strafing air craft over head. The choppers flew by and away, Red knew they would probably make another pass soon and just as he thought they were lucky to have escaped the barrage without casualties he saw one of Vasilli's men had gone down and not got back up.

"Man down!" Fury saw too, "Get to cover!"

Red slammed into a container as the helicopters flew over head again, rotors roaring above them, but were unable to spot the soldiers who were now partially concealed from searching eyes above. He peeked out of cover to see what was in front of them and standing in their way, and saw dozens of soldiers advancing on their position. More worryingly was a Russian designed BMP driving slowly over to them and opening fire with its mounted machine gun in their general direction.

"Thin them out!" Fury ordered the group, "Frags, launchers, use everything you've got!"

Red had three hand grenades and one after the other he pulled the pins free and tossed them out into the gathering crowds of hostile soldiers who had begun to open fire on them. The rest of the attackers threw out explosives too, a few of them had launchers equipped to their rifles and fired off the grenades at the enemies furthest from them. The detonations rang out deafeningly one after the other, the concussive force of them blasted out around Red's cover and threw him from side to side, his momentary loss of hearing made him feel as though the world was spinning upside down until it settled again. He felt blood drip from his ears.

"We need cover to go forward," Franz warned.

"Pop smoke!" Fury instructed, and Red tossed out a smoke grenade along with some of the others. Suddenly they had clouded themselves from the stunned and injured remaining enemies and, more importantly, the BMP.

They edged forwards but the fire from the light tank was still too much to make any real progress. The smoke was dense and Red could barely see the muzzle of his own rifle in front of him but he could hear the sounds of the armour's mounted machine gun firing blindly towards him, the gunshots hissed all about the group in the smoke.

One of Vasilli's men took a bullet straight through the eye socket. Red was next to the man as half his head was instantly and violently removed from the rest of it and brain matter splashed across the floor behind him. Red ducked away from the spray of blood and was suddenly close enough to see Fury take a bullet too. He fell to the ground with a gasp and Red leaned down to help him. The man had been hit in the side, his flak jacket took most of the impact but the machine gun round had still broken through into flesh behind it.

"Get me up, comrade," Fury told Red, who helped pull him up to his feet. Red reached for a stick of morphine from his utility belt but Fury pushed it away with a wince of pain. "Got to keep my head clear, just keep moving."

"Boss the armour's killing us!" Howler shouted from somewhere through the smoke.

"Grenades won't do it, we'll have to use C4," Fury told them, "Red, take mine. I'll cover you."

All the members of Casual had kitted up with C4 from the supplies that the AC-130 had brought with it upon Vasilli's request. In case there was problem with the HALO jump, all of Casual had explosives to knock out the electricity tower, which meant that there were still two C4 charges left over. Red took Fury's bulky pack of C4 from him and ran forwards with his leader right behind him, firing over his head to ward off any shooters who came too close, although there were few left after the grenade bombardment.

Red could see the tank's outline through the smoke and ducking under its machine gun fire he was almost next to it before suddenly an ultranationalist appeared out of the smoke on his flank. Red kicked out with his boot to knock away the gun that was pointed at him and balled into the enemy shoulder first, knocking him to the ground. Fury caught up and with two quick slams of his rifle butt he crushed the soldier's face in. Red scrambled back to his feet to keep moving, staying low now as he could hear gunfire coming from all around him. As the smoke began to clear he could see they were in the midst of the remaining enemy lines.

Almost on all fours, he scrambled round to the back of the tank and slammed the C4 into place before Fury pulled him up and away. They ran back through the smoke as Red hit the detonator switch again and as they dived behind a shipping container the tank was torn apart from the rear and split open, the remains crushed and ripped by the force of the blast like an aluminium can hit by a hatchet. The blast cleared what was left of the smoke leaving the pair dangerously exposed.

Red watched one way down the length of the storage container whilst Fury watched the other, hoping the rest of the team would catch up soon. Red gunned down a pair of soldiers running round to his side of the cover before his rifle ran dry. No time to reload, Red let his rifle hang by its strap and whipped out his side arm. He shot down another man from back the way they had came in the rear of the head, his face exploding out the other side. Two more men came round the corner of the container as it now became clear the pair of SHIELD soldiers were hiding there. Red caught one in the neck with his pistol but the second got a couple of shots off before the Russian could double tap a pair of rounds into his sternum. One of the rounds flew wide, the other caught Red in the thigh and he fell to the ground as his leg collapsed underneath him.

He clutched at his injury and tried to keep focused, the sudden fall bringing back pain in his shoulder from the knife wound earlier as his leg burned in agony. He had his handgun up and ready to shoot down anyone else who thought they could get close, but he knew he was losing blood fast. Fury shouted something at him, asking if he was OK but Red couldn't hear him properly, his ears still ringing after the explosion of the tank. The rest of the team finally reached their position, Sherlock and Vasilli grabbed him and laid him down. Someone warned him that he would feel pain and Red grimaced as his wound was bound tightly. Fury pulled him to his feet.

"You good?" He asked.

Red nodded wearily, reloading his weapons and trying not to put too much weight on his injured limb. He noticed another of Vasilli's team was missing, presumably again caught by the BMP, leaving just Franz and Vasilli himself from their group with Harper following up behind, bleeding from a fresh wound in his arm that he was stubbornly ignoring. Collectively they were a mess, but there was no time to worry about that now. The missiles were still in flight and time was running out.

"Onto the tarmac," Fury ordered, "Get to the vents."

The team moved urgently, passing the burning remains of the BMP and onto the tarmac beyond. A handful of large, circular ventilation shafts surrounded the missile silos in the centre of the facility. Many of the silos were left open, two still smoked from the earlier launches and the air about them remained hot.

They found a vent with some kind of service hatch on it that, after Howler shot off the lock, they were quickly able to tie up some rope and repel down into the humid, dark shaft below. Red followed the team down, then crawled through a hole in the round-walled shaft and into an air duct. Blood seeped from his leg onto the metal panelling underneath him, each step was painful and felt uncertain, as though his wounded limb might buckle at any moment. A little way down the claustrophobic duct a metal grate was found in the floor of the makeshift passage, with a quick kick it allowed them to drop down into the stone walled corridor below.

"Control to Casual," Avery's voice came in over their earpieces, the signal poor now that they were two storeys underground.

"Receiving you, Control," Fury acknowledged, "What have you got for us?"

"We got good news and bad news. Good news is the Latverians have given us schematics for the facility, the control room is located south west of your entry point and less than half a klick away."

"Roger, Control," Fury said, pointing the team down the correct direction of the dimly lit tunnel they were now in and leading the way, "What's the bad news?"

"Uh..." Avery replied hesitantly, "We're still trying to get those abort codes, over."

"The hell with it," Fury didn't sound like he had any intention of stopping now, "We'll give it our best shot. Casual out."

Red struggled to keep up with the group as they ran as fast as their weary and beaten bodies could carry them, with perhaps millions of lives depending on their speed. An alarm began to sound around them, apparently it was becoming increasingly obvious that the facility had been breached by Casual and their allies and Red assumed that around the next corner they would be welcomed with a wall of bullets by Kholt's ultranationalists.

Instead, as they made another turn in the maze like corridors that Fury guided them through, they faced a single soldier. He was only carrying a pistol and was dressed in civilian clothing with a flak jacket loosely strapped over his chest. He didn't attack the group as they skidded around the bend and Fury held up a hand for the team to hold their fire until he could be identified.

"Hendrickson?" Harper broke the brief silence, and Red remembered that Hendrickson was the name of the fourth and final member of CIA team Red Hawk. "What you doing, kid?" Harper asked the younger looking man.

"Me?" He looked confused and angered by the question, "What am I doing? What are you doing, Harper! Kholt's about to start a war with the western world that will lead to Latveria being wiped off the damn map! I'm helping him do it, it's the mission."

"You god damn traitor," Harper growled, "The mission wasn't to kill millions of Americans to start a war that will destroy a nation!"

"Better the millions now than the billions who will die if this country is left in the hands of a madman!" Hendrickson insisted.

"Doom is noble leader!" Franz snapped, reminding Red the fanaticism of Latverians to their corrupt leader.

"Help me, Sir, if we hand over these soldiers to Kholt it will buy you his trust. We're CIA, we need to look at the bigger picture."

"You Company boys are some heartless sons of bitches," Howler decided.

"Serious issues," Sherlock agreed.

"I've done terrible things in this line of work, kid, things like you wouldn't believe," Harper admitted grimly, "But I can't let you sacrifice American lives, I can't let you blow up the goddamn capital!"

Hendrickson looked shocked that his plan was being rejected, but he was not so stunned that he couldn't raise and fire his pistol faster than Harper or any of the others could react to stop him. He got a single shot off before Red and the rest of the team gunned him down in a blizzard of lead. As his bloody body hit the floor, Red saw that Harper had been hit in the gut under his Kevlar vest and was now clutching an oozing wound.

"Ah, crap," He cursed somewhat mildly, "That guy always was an asshole."

"We got to get you moving," Fury told him, helping him to sit upright against a wall as the rest of the team formed up around him, the alarm still sounding and the sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor from both sides.

"Forget that, boy," Harper laughed at Fury's optimism, "I'll watch your backs, you stick to the mission. Time's running out."

Red saw Fury open his mouth to protest but Harper grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close before growling menacingly into his face, "Get it done, soldier."

Fury nodded and ordered the group to follow him, now just Casual and the two Latverian paratroopers. They turned another corner whilst gunfire behind them suggested Harper was attempting to hold off a patrol who had been coming up behind them. Either that, Red thought, or he had just been finished off by Kholt's rebels.

"We've got to move!" Fury shouted at them, "Go!"

Red ran. They turned another corner and a pair of soldiers appeared up ahead of them. Red knelt fast and ignored the pain in his leg as he squeezed off a burst of shots into one of the enemies. The other was put down by Franz stood next to him and as Sherlock helped Red back up to his feet the team were moving again. Red could almost picture the missiles streaking through the air, millions of civilians oblivious to the unstoppable violence headed their way.

Another bend in the corridor and Red had to push Howler into a recess in the opposite wall as soldiers ready and waiting for them opened fire. The pair slammed into the slim cover and watched as Vasilli tossed out a flash bang at the defenders. A lightning blaze of light, a thunderous clap of sound and the team moved back out into the corridor, Franz leading them forwards to gun down their perplexed and stumbling enemies.

"We're running out of time here," Howler warned as they started moving again.

Ahead of him, Sherlock found himself at a fork in the passage, "Where's the bloody control room?"

"Left!" Fury shouted at him, using the vague directions given to him by Avery to guide them, "Go left, hurry!"

Casual sprinted down the corridor. Red gasped in pain as his bleeding leg almost collapsed underneath him with each step. He didn't complain, refusing to slow down.

"Move your asses!" Fury shouted at them, "Get to those doors up ahead!"

Red suddenly saw huge, thick metal blast doors up ahead that looked like something from a bank vault. He guessed this must have been the outer door to the control room and any chance left to stop the two missiles lay inside.

"Casual, this is Agent Fallon," a young, tense voice reported in over the radio link, "I've hacked the launch codes, but we still need you to manually enter them in at launch control."

"Good work kid, we're on it," Fury replied. He pointed Sherlock to a nearby control panel, "Open the doors."

"Roger," Sherlock nodded and he began to quickly override the old technology.

With a heavy roar and groan of inner workings, the doors began to open from the middle, the two sides sliding away from one another at a painfully slow speed, and as Franz cursed it in his native tongue Fury began to pace back and forth in front of them anxiously. Red reloaded his rifle patiently.

"Oh, you gotta be shittin' me..." Howler muttered.

"Sherlock, can't you make it open faster?" Fury asked.

"Negative, Sir," He reported, "You can try pulling on it if it'll make you feel better."

"Cheeky bastard," Fury muttered, "Alright when we get inside we clear it out, but watch your fire around the computers. The controls will be in Latverian so Vasilli, you're up."

"Understood," Vasilli nodded.

"We've got less than two minutes," Fury said, checking the time before the team prepared to move inside the doors as they slowly opened a big enough gap to pass through, "Go, go, go."

Red ran in alongside the rest of the group and quickly found himself in a room maybe forty feet in diameter filled with rows of computer equipment that looked like it had been installed during the Cold War. There were a half dozen ultranationalists waiting for them who ducked down behind the terminals and fired from cover at the group. Red saw Franz get scraped across the arm by a bullet and another was deflected off of Howler's flak jacket as they all slid down behind the computing equipment for cover themselves.

Red peeked over a terminal, careful to avoid shooting out any of the technical gear that could hold the key to saving the USA's capital city. He spotted one soldier edge out the side of one row of computers to try and flank the team and Red put a single well placed bullet through his head. Around him the rest of the team opened fire on visible targets too. Red vaulted over the desk in front him between two computers and ducked down behind the next row, before then leaning over to empty his magazine of bullets blindly into the Latverians hiding in cover behind it.

Howler moved up to check the damage as Red reloaded, "We're clear," said the American.

"Nice work, comrade," Fury said to Red, before pointing to a nearby computer that was already on and looked to be tracking the missile's trajectories, "Vas, get to it."

"Yes, I'm on it..." He paused to tap frantically at the keyboard. Around them Sherlock and Franz guarded the door they had entered through and Howler watched another door that lead out a different direction. "OK, I have the screen, what are the codes?"

Fury requested them from Avery who read them out quickly but clearly to him over the radio. Red heard him relay them, one digit at a time, to Vasilli who in turn typed them in with careful precision. There was no time for a mistake now. The code was about fifteen numbers long and after Vasilli had finished the team stood in silence waiting for a radio report from SHIELD operational Control to inform them of the result.

Red began to worry. They had been running out of time, Fallon might not have extracted the right codes or somewhere between him and Vasilli someone might have made a single mistake that would cost the world dearly. Millions of lives, Red thought to himself, and he suddenly felt selfish for being concerned by his injuries. As they waited in silence it felt as though time had slowed to a halt, it took perhaps only a few seconds for Avery to report back to them but it seemed that an eternity had passed.

"Standby..." Avery sounded as though he was trying to talk whilst holding his breath, "Standby..."

They waited. There was nothing more the soldiers could do now but stand tense and exhausted. Red felt sick to the stomach with fear, he closed his eyes and listened to his heart beat race.

"...Casual, all warheads have been confirmed destroyed in flight. We got a ton of debris but most of it is landing in the ocean."

Vasilli shouted with joy and Fury slapped him on the shoulder with a grin as though he had known everything was going to work out the whole time. Red saw Sherlock and Howler breath sighs of relief and let out nervous laughs with a few choice swear words. Franz, however, had noticed something on one of the screens in the room and Red saw that his grim set face was not relaxing like the rest of the team.

"Everyone," He called them over, "Security feed, it's Kholt."

They crowded round the screen showing security camera footage and Red saw some kind of vehicle depot for the facility that lead out onto a road, jeeps and cars were being scrambled into by the Ultranationalists. Red suddenly realised there was a huge force stationed here and it was being mobilised, he was thankful that they managed to catch them off guard or else they never would have reached the control room. He remembered that Fury had told them help was on the way, and that with their missile plan ruined the rebels were now preparing to fight off the incoming SHIELD forces or escape. In the midst of them was the stern, scarred face of Kholt pointing and shouting orders before climbing into a jeep himself.

"He's taking off!" Sherlock shouted.

"Casual this is Control," Avery contacted them again, "Recommend you exfil from the area immediately. Satellites show large numbers of hostiles converging on your position. Get out of there now!"

"You know, I wouldn't mind getting a shot at Kholt," Howler mused.

"Get in line, mate," Sherlock said.

"I think I see way to depot," Vasilli said, studying the security cameras.

"Alright," Fury nodded, "Control this is Casual, Kholt's making a run for it... we're going after him."


	6. Chapter Six: Get The Hell Out Of Dodge

**Soldiers Of SHIELD**

BOOK ONE: HOLIDAY TO LATVERIA

CHAPTER SIX: GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE

"Casual this is Control, Kholt is heading south with a substantial escort, advise you hold back and wait for SHIELD forces to clear the facility for an exfil. It's too hot for you to pursue."

"Too hot? Warm temperature, man," Howler laughed as the team listened to Avery's advice whilst beginning to leave the control room, "A beer should be ice cold anyway."

"Wrong, mate," Sherlock shook his head, "A larger maybe, but a pint of stout?"

"Oh you need some serious schooling," Howler insisted, "Red? Whose side you on here?"

"We have no time for your talk," Franz insisted, "Reinforcements are coming!"

"We cannot go back in the way we have came," Vasilli warned as the security monitors showed a huge portion of the forces on site were streaming towards them.

"Then let's find a new way out," Fury said after he patched himself up from the bullet fragment that had hit him in the side earlier, "Sherlock, use your C4 on that wall and make us a hole into whatever's on the far side.

The four members of Casual had each taken a C4 explosive charge with them from their HALO jump earlier and, after blowing the electricity pylon and the BMP vehicle, Sherlock had the last one. Red reloaded his rifle with his final magazine as he watched Sherlock stick the charge onto a wall opposite the heavy blast doors they had entered through. He told them to get clear and they all backed off before the detonation blew the wall outwards, revealing a corridor on the far side. Red could hear alarm sirens and see flashing red lights through their impromptu exit, revealing that the facility was undergoing an emergency situation and Red hoped it was due to the arrival of SHIELD reinforcements. He wanted a clear run at Kholt.

"Move fast," Fury ordered them, "this fight isn't over yet."

"At least the world didn't end," Sherlock shrugged.

"Let's hit it," Howler nodded.

Red followed the team through the rough hole in the wall, coughing on the dust the explosion had kicked up. He heard voices of enemy soldiers moving into the control room and sprayed a few rounds of his rifle towards them as he left to fend them off. Scrambling after the rest of the team, Red caught up with them as they moved down a hallway leading onto what appeared to be the main route out of the facility. Ultranationalists were running up ahead out towards the exit and on Fury's command the team mercilessly gunned them down from behind.

"Vehicle depot up ahead," Vasilli pointed and the team moved through a series of rooms that looked more like work offices than the nuclear bunkers they had been charging through recently.

Out the other side they found themselves on a small landing overlooking the few trucks that hadn't yet been taken, although there were soldiers still scrambling to get into them, oblivious to the new arrivals, obviously more worried by whatever SHIELD forces were approaching from outside the facility rather than coming up from inside.

Red shot one of the hostiles through the side as the unlucky soldier pulled himself into the back of a jeep. He then swung his rifle to pick a new target, letting himself rest up against a hand rail to take some pressure off of his wounded leg which had begun to go numb. He knew that this was not a good sign but right now he was thankful that the pain had dulled. He sprayed a trio of shots into the chest of another soldier who turned to see what the gunfire was before picking a third target who was a little quicker to react. As the man pointed his gun up vaguely towards Casual and their two loyalist allies Red fired a rifle round through his throat.

"Clear," Franz reported.

"Where the hell's Kholt?" Sherlock asked, and Red was disappointed to see that the Ultranationalist leader had apparently already left the depot.

"Guess the asshole didn't plan on goin' down with the ship," Howler replied.

Vasilli swore bitterly in his own language as the team moved down in between the vehicles.

"Kholt can wait," Fury decided, "Right now we need to get out before we're overrun." He began to speak into his radio, "Control, Kholt has escaped, we need an exfil immediately."

"Copy that, Casual," Avery replied, "Get clear of the hostile forces and we'll track your location, pick up in five."

"Roger that," Fury nodded before turning to the others, "Let's go before this gets any worse."

Even as he said it Sherlock called a warning and the team ducked away from gunfire spraying around the room from back towards the offices they had entered from. Red jumped into the back of a truck and fired back, picking his shots carefully to save ammunition but still managing to gun down two of their pursuers before Franz in the driver's seat got their chosen getaway vehicle moving.

The truck revved into life and shot out of the large hangar door in front of them. Next to Franz in the passenger seat was Fury whilst Red rode in the back with Howler, Sherlock and Vasilli. They exited up a steep ramp and out onto the ground level. Weaving between closed silos, Red saw that the whole area was alive with activity. All around them hundreds, maybe thousands of Ultranationalist soldiers had gathered to defend the facility too late, and now were scrambling to counter the SHIELD attack that was well underway.

Planes roared overhead dropping bombs across the surrounding areas to cut off escaping Ultranationalists and helicopters were lowering on the far side of the facility to deploy infantry. But they were no use to Casual now and Red knew it, they were in the middle of a panicked and fanatical army that wanted them dead, the reinforcements were half a kilometre away and the air support had no way of knowing which of the thirty or more trucks driving out of the developing battleground had friendlies on board. In all likelihood the only thing the arriving SHIELD force could do to Casual was blow them up, mistaking them for escaping Latverian rebels. The team had to get as far away from the madness as they could and, Red hoped, maybe find the traitor Colonel Kholt heading in the same direction.

A truck up ahead had tried to get out fast and smashed through the electrified fence nearby. It had fried the passengers but collapsed the barrier in the process allowing Franz to gun their own vehicle over the fence and up a small bank, with a few of the nearby Ultranationalists following suit and right on their tail as they escaped the perimeter of the launch facility. They skidded out onto a small road and began to speed away from the growing battle.

Red opened fire on the closest truck as it swung into the lane just behind them, spraying fire into the window that gave way without too much resistance. Vasilli opened up with his rifle too and scored a few hits on the driver inside the exposed cabin, the truck skidded off the road, up a bank and into a tree where it crunched to a halt with a thunderous crash and a small explosion from the engine in the front.

A second truck began to pull up closer and Red watched as Sherlock and Howler leaned out the side of their own vehicle to get a better shot. Just as soldiers mounted in the back of the approaching truck stood up to open fire, the two SHIELD soldiers sprayed bullets into the tyres and sent the vehicle into a frenzied zigzag. The driver desperately attempted to keep control and Red saw one of the soldiers fall out the back of it, but ultimately the truck flipped over and rolled alongside the bank of a river running alongside them that was growing wider and lower beside the road.

"We clear yet?" Sherlock asked, shouting over the noise of the engine.

"Not even close, my friend," Vasilli said regretfully, pointing over their heads and up at the road ahead.

The lane they were on was about to join up with another, one with a steady line of civilian cars driving down it and on which it seemed the majority of the Ultranationalists who had escaped were now heading down. It looked like this road met the main exit from the launch facility, but the route Franz had taken them over the downed fence had been more direct and so they had caught up with the escaping army.

Franz skidded the truck between a couple of cheap civilian cars and Red could see the panicked faces of the drivers attempt to veer aside of drop back and away from the military vehicle. Red took the opportunity to sit properly and take weight off his leg which was throbbing again. He felt the truck weave between more cars as they sped forward, the engine roaring angrily. The Russian checked his magazine for ammunition, found just a dozen rounds left in his rifle and began to hope they could get clear of this mess and picked up by SHIELD sooner rather than later.

"Their right on our arse boys!" Sherlock warned, and suddenly Red saw a jeep speed up behind them, knocking a civilian car in the bumper as a warning for them to get out the way. The driver obeyed and suddenly the Ultranationalist 4x4 was closing up on them.

"I got this," Howler said, and the Delta man aimed his grenade launcher low at the jeep and braced himself in the moving truck, launching the explosive at the underside of the jeep.

The vehicle shot up at the front end and scraped sparks behind it at the back as metal dragged across concrete. One of the wheels had been blown clean off and what was left of the jeep lunged forwards as gravity dragged it back down and with no control left it quickly veered off into the barrier at the side of the road. Smashing through the thin strip of steel, the jeep rocketed off the edge of the road and fell, smoking and broken, into the river that was now far below.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Howler cheered, before quite suddenly bullets ripped into the truck's walls.

The gunfire had come from further back down the road as another truck approached them fast, closing the distance quickly as Red guessed Franz was getting held up by civilians in front of them. Red and the others in the back opened fire on the soldiers standing up in the back of the pursuing vehicle, but suddenly more rounds shot over their heads from the side as Red realised Franz wasn't simply stuck in traffic, but in fact they had caught up with another Ultranationalist truck and now it was forcing them into the cliff face that was rising up on the opposite side to the river.

"We're getting boxed in!" Sherlock warned.

Red fired off his last rounds into the truck behind them before running out of ammunition. Looking around for quick inspiration he saw that under the bench he was sat on was an emergency kit. He lit up a flare from the kit and tossed it onto the bonnet of the truck behind them, lighting up a flare from the kit and tossing it at the windscreen of the pursuers.

It lit up instantly, red sparks spreading across the bonnet frighteningly quick. It wouldn't do any damage to the armoured vehicle or its occupants, but Red was counting on the driver not thinking about that as his entire field of view was filled with flaming light. His natural instinct was to try and escape it, and Red was pleased to see him swerve straight into the cliff edge and then spin into the barrier on the side of the cliff where the car slid to a halt and was quickly left behind by the rest of the speeding vehicles.

The other truck was trying to force Franz into the cliff and it was still bearing down on them from the side, damaging their escape vehicle. From the lessened sound of gunfire Red guessed his teammates and shot down the majority of the shooters mounted inside it, but as Red peaked out from crouching inside their own truck he suddenly saw the lone surviving Ultranationalists on board leap across with a battle cry, landing straight on top of him.

With his leg injured Red quickly went down under the weight of his attacker who recovered from his stunt quickly and sat up to aim his weapon at the others inside the compartment. Vasilli kicked the rifle clean out of his hands, Sherlock grabbed him by the collar to pull him off of Red and Howler kicked him hard in the face. As the kamikaze soldier stumbled backwards with a broken nose Red grabbed the man by his belt, pulled out the combat knife he found there and plunged it into the soldier's gut before he let him fall out the back of the truck and roll away down the road like a ragdoll, blood spraying with each bounce.

Watching him disappear behind them, Red saw the body mercilessly run over by another set of trucks that was chasing from further back down the road. He could see maybe four or five but behind them could have been a hundred more. Red snatched up the AK47 their recent attacker had dropped and checked it was still loaded. It had half a magazine left, enough for now at least.

"Control, what's the status on our extract, over?" Red heard Fury ask urgently over the comm. link.

"Casual, evac has been delayed," reported Avery, "ETA on your location is ten minutes."

"That's no use, Major," Fury replied, "We'll be dead in five!"

Red didn't get a chance to hear Avery's response as Sherlock shouted a warning to the group and pointed over the side of their truck.

"Hind, nine o'clock high!" He yelled, and the group quickly took aim and began firing up at the helicopter as it lowered to fly parallel with them, soaring over the river with a machine gunner taking aim out of its flank.

The fast firing weapon opened up and began blasting away at the cliff face just behind them down the road. The gunner began to adjust the fire of the minigun and the constant stream of bullets slowly caught up with the speeding truck, eventually they would hit the back of it and begin to slice Red and the other passengers in half.

Red squeezed off rounds from his AK, the semi-automatic fire was accurate and combined with the fire coming from the rest of his allies the gunner was hit at least once and toppled from his position before dropping into the river far below. The helicopter swung away a little, keeping level with the truck but getting out of range of their small arms in case a lucky shot hit something vital. Red was thankful for the excuse to save some ammunition but looking back down the road the vehicles escaping the SHIELD attack and chasing down Casual in the process were gaining fast, not encumbered by a damaged truck like the one Red was riding in.

Suddenly the helicopter vanished as Franz gunned the truck into a tunnel that lead underneath the cliff face, cutting deep into the rock. Red noticed there were no longer civilian cars around to worry about, it seemed the drivers had finally realised this was not a safe route to take today. But they were boxed in by the cliff all around but out the left they could still see the widening valley the river ran through and between the support columns that flew by Red could see the helicopter staying right alongside them.

"Eyes on our twelve o'clock!" Fury shouted out of the passenger side window and Red stood up as best he could to see another Ultranationalist truck just ahead of them which had slowed down and let the group catch up so that it could engage them.

Soldiers in the back of the truck began shooting down on the driver's cabin where Franz tried to overtake them. Slowing down with so many hostiles behind was not an option, they had to take this vehicle out without blocking their own path. Red joined his team in firing back at the soldiers ahead and when one of them took a round through the chest the others ducked back down nervously. Suddenly one of them stood back up aiming something more problematic than just another AK.

"RPG on that truck! Take him down!" Howler shouted at the others and they began to shoot at him.

Red fired fast, if that launcher fired the rocket would blow them all apart and those who survived would probably be crushed to death by the tunnel that would likely collapse as a result of the explosion. The soldier took a hit to the shoulder and twisted away from Casual's truck with the force of the projectile, but as he tensed in pain he pulled the trigger of his massive weapon and the rocket was launched inside the passenger bay of the transport vehicle.

Flame and smoke suddenly filled the road ahead of the team and Franz fought to control their truck as the one in front was torn in half, bodies incinerated and metal ripped viciously as the rocket was launched in the middle of the truck the unfortunate shooter had been stood in. The twisted remains of it swerved and skidded across the road from side to side as it quickly lost momentum, and Red gasped in pain as he was thrown around in their truck, his bleeding leg slamming into the side, whilst Franz attempted to avoid the damage ahead.

He managed to drive them clear of the carnage whilst the vehicles behind were slowed enough to give Casual a chance at escape. They left the tunnel and as the cliff face lowered and shrank down to a bank the river to their side dropped away even further still to make a deep gorge perhaps over one hundred feet deep. Up ahead Red saw to their right more roads converged onto their own as up ahead a bridge offered the only route over the chasm for miles around. Exhausted, Red was not pleased to see that on the converging roads were more escaping Ultranationalists, but it looked like if they could gun it to the bridge they would still be able to get clear of the swarming enemy. Maybe, if they were lucky.

"The helicopter has gone," Vasilli pointed out as condolence to the realisation that they were not out of danger yet, and Red realised that during the shoot out in the tunnel he hadn't seen the chopper pull away.

"Must have run out of ammo," Howler guessed, assuming that the chopper had been involved in the fight back at the launch facility against the larger SHIELD force before encountering Casual during its own escape.

"Good enough for me," Sherlock said happily.

"Yeah no kidd- oh, shit!" Howler suddenly shouted, "He's about to take out that bridge!"

Red looked to the bridge and saw that the helicopter hadn't broken off its chase, it had flown ahead and now turned to hover over the bridge where it levelled itself to launch its compliment of missiles at the only safe route Casual could take out of the closing Ultranationalist trucks. Franz was already steering onto the bridge, surrounded in all other directions by advancing rebel trucks he had been given no other option, but he now desperately slammed on the brake.

"Stop the goddamn truck!" Red could hear Fury yell at him as up ahead the helicopter launched a set of missiles that one after the other slammed into the surface of the bridge and blew a gaping hole in the two lanes of concrete road maybe teen feet long, too long to be able to jump it in truck.

"This arsehole's really got it in for us," Sherlock noted somewhat unnecessarily as everyone held on tight and the truck began to skid loudly to a halt.

Franz had hit the brakes in time, but only if the hole in the bridge had stayed the same size. Unfortunately it continued to crumble and collapse, growing as the supports gave way to the broken structure. Seeing no other way of avoiding tumbling over a hundred feet into the river below, their Latverian driver spun the truck hard to try and turn away from the danger, but in doing so only managed to roll it over on its side. Red held on but quickly he and the others were thrown from the vehicle as it capsized violently. He hit the ground hard and blacked out as his head cracked against the road beneath him.

Slowly Red's sense returned. His hearing was muffled, there was shouting and the groaning of metal, the smell of smoke and gravel, pain in his shoulder and leg, blood dripping from a gash across the top of his shaven head, more leaked from a split lip. He spat red out on the floor beneath him and slowly lifted himself onto his knees. His AK had landed nearby and he reached out for it before realising the imminent danger of his surroundings.

He was on a section of the bridge that was half collapsed, a support beam underneath was doing its best to hold it in place on one side but the weight of the concrete was dragging it down and soon it would drop into the river far below. He could hear the steel support beam creaking as it began to submit to the weight of the slab Red was knelt on. Behind him the upturned truck they had rode in on suddenly slid away and vanished from sight, gravity dragging it lazily off the edge of the hole in the bridge and to a watery fate. He looked up and saw his squad mates shouting at him from further down the bridge where it was safe from collapse for now, knowing if they tried to go down and help him the additional weight would quickly break the slab of concrete Red was on off the support beams. He staggered to his feet and clambered up towards them, hands reached down and pulled him up, Vasilli and Sherlock dragging him off the hanging slab as it finally gave way and plummeted into the river the moment his boots left it.

Red shook his head to clear it and joined his teammates who were using the concrete blocks that had been scattered about them from the helicopter's missile attack as cover. He dropped in behind one of them himself and saw that up ahead at the end of the bridge was a growing horde of Ultranationalists, trucks parked up as a blockade and more coming down the various roads towards them. They had been trying to escape and now word had spread that the team responsible for the failure of their plan was trapped, they were being handed the chance for revenge and promotion on a platter and hundreds had decided to get in on the event.

"Control this is Casual," Fury barked into his radio as an immense amount of small arms fire began shooting down the bridge towards them, "We are under heavy attack at the highway bridge, request immediate air support, over!"

"Working on it, Casual," Avery's voice replied, "We've got substantial air support but it's going to take some time to reach you out there."

"Useless wankers!" Sherlock shouted angrily.

"What's the situation, boss?" Howler asked.

"We're on our own," Fury replied grimly.

Red fired the last few rounds of his AK-47 off and dropped it, switching to his side arm. The Ultranationalists had stepped onto the bridge maybe sixty feet away but they were edging closer. The six man team quickly took down a fair number of the closing infantry who moved forwards without cover, and they began to slow their advance as they lost scores of soldiers, but as Red reloaded his pistol with his final clip he knew the sheer number of hostiles coming at them would quickly overwhelm them.

He picked off a couple more of the soldiers before he ran out of ammunition. He ran his hands over his gear to see if he had anything left to use against the enemy but found only his combat knife, he pulled it out and stayed out of the firing line, waiting for them to get closer so he could cut a few of the murderous rogue Latverians down with his blade and beat them with his bare hands before they could put him down.

Suddenly he heard helicopter blades closing in and he peaked out of cover to see the enemy infantry now just forty feet away. He hoped that Avery had managed to maybe get a gunship out to help them but instead the sound was the chopper that had chased them all the way down the river and blown out the bridge to stop their escape. It tilted its nose and Red knew it was levelling its final missiles at their position.

"Incoming!" Vasilli yelled.

"Cover!" Franz called out as missiles streaked through the air.

They crashed down somewhere behind Red and he felt the blast pull him and throw him around, he slammed into the ground and flames licked out at him prickling and burning his skin under his BDUs. He was momentarily stunned, he had completely lost track of where he was, his ears were bleeding and unable to tell him which way was up. He couldn't feel his limbs, something inside of him throbbed horribly and some part of his mind that was still working told him he had been crushed into the floor with enough force to cause internal injuries. He felt his throat spasm as though it was going to vomit but instead blood spurted out of his mouth. He opened his eyes and saw smoke all around, dimly he noticed the hovering helicopter had dropped a rope and deployed a soldier or two to add to the throng already pacing down the bridge.

He was lying on his back and he struggled to raise his head, something in his spine twanged sharply, but he managed to look around enough to make out where his team was. Howler and Sherlock were back down near the break in the bridge, neither were moving, Fury was across from him rolling his head a little from side to side as he tried to stay conscious. Up ahead of him Vasilli had been thrown forwards and out of cover, he lay groaning in pain and unable to move. Next to Red was Franz, muttering something incoherent, his eyes shut, clearly not fully awake yet.

Bullets began to shoot towards them and Red realised he was exposed, he used one arm to drag himself out of the middle of the bridge and behind some broken road. He reached out and grabbed Franz by the back of his collar to pull him into some protection with him, but as he did so one of the bullets that whipped past overhead slapped into the Latverian's side with a wet slap and a spray of blood. He folded up slightly but as Red tried to keep pulling him the soldier went limp quite suddenly as life left him. There was nothing more Red could do, he dropped Franz dead and tried to tuck himself into cover again but the pain in his gut and back prevented him from being able to move an inch now. He looked towards the Ultranationalists and suddenly felt utterly helpless as he recognised the man who had been dropped from the helicopter and now lead the mass of soldiers forwards.

It was Colonel Kholt. He paced forwards with a pistol at the ready, his scarred face twisted in absolute hatred and his eyes lit with a menacing anticipation of the revenge that was within his reach. He strode forwards to Vasilli who looked up at him and screamed defiantly what Red assumed was a stream of insults before the Colonel shot his former sergeant through the head at point blank range, executing him in cold blood. Red watched horrified, unable to do anything as the towering figure of Kholt began to step towards him, the nearest SHIELD soldier. The rest of the Ultranationalists stood back from their leader, having been ordered to let him handle this so he could live out his personal vendetta against Casual and their allies. Kholt stood over Red who stared back at him silently, Casual had beaten him and Red had no issue with dying to have achieved it. Kholt looked frustrated by Red's lack of begging, he raised his pistol to the Russian's forehead and Red bared his teeth back at the traitor.

Out of nowhere the helicopter that waited back at the end of the bridge exploded in a ball of flame. Red looked over at it as Kholt turned to see what had happened. They looked together in awe as the sky was darkened by a massive floating platform that glided through the air, coming over the cliff escorted by a swarm of helicopters and jet fighters. The Helicarrier was SHIELD's mobile HQ, a fortress and a mobile aerial weapon all in one and was feared by enemies of the organisation across the world. It had been used to fight off alien invasions and end international conflicts, to take on rogue weapon satellites or hostile nuclear submarines and right now the full might of SHIELD's greatest weapon had arrived to put an end to the Latverian Ultranationalists.

Kholt roared in anger and began shouting orders at his soldiers who rushed towards the new threat and off of the bridge, the helicopters from the carrier began deploying more SHIELD soldiers to trap the rebels in and more rushed over to the bridge hoping they could still save Casual. The Colonel watched as everything he had worked towards was destroyed around him, all he could do was turn back to Red to take down the SHIELD team with him. Red felt relief flood through him knowing that Casual had put an end to the Latveria crisis. The world was safe to spin on for one more day.

The gunshot rang out loud and clear even in the midst of the chaos and battle that was erupting all about the bridge. Red heard it cut through all other noise as though his senses knew how important that shot would be for him and he clenched his jaw as he waited for the bullet to tear his skull open, splash his brains across the roadside and for his life to end violently.

It didn't happen. Red looked up and saw Fury had woken himself up enough to aim a pistol that smoked, further round Red saw Kholt drop to the ground lifeless and empty, a bullet to the brain had torn open the back of his head and he fell with a look of utter shock etched endlessly into his face. He dropped to the floor as Red saw Fury drop his weapon and begin to drag his battered body onto his feet and stumble over towards Red. Helicopters began to drop off SHIELD teams who rushed over to them and as Red's vision began to blur he felt himself being lifted by his teammates. Fury pulled him up, Sherlock and Howler, both bloody and limping, held him up and began to carry him over towards the relief force.

"We've got him," A member of a medical team said as Howler and Sherlock handed over Red's limp body to the paramedics, "Stay with us, soldier," he added to Red as he struggled to get another breath into his lungs, he could hear blood pumping through his ears slow as his pulse dropped fast.

"We need to get him to the med bay immediately," Red heard one of the medics say urgently as he was strapped into a gurney under a hovering chopper to be taken straight to the Helicarrier. "Quickly, we're losing him!"

"Is he going to make it?" Red heard Fury ask desperately as his head began to spin drearily.

"We need to move him now," was all the medic would say.

"Is he even alive?" Fury's voice shouted, it sounded far off.

Red felt himself being lifted away as he finally lost consciousness.

CASUAL WILL RETURN IN 'A NEW PRODUCT IN THE CATALOGUE'


End file.
